Shade matching performance of dental students with three various lighting conditions

To evaluate the ability of dental students to match shades under three various light conditions. Sixty senior dental students participated in this study. All students were tested for color deficiency using Ishahara's tests. Nine classical vita shade tabs were randomly selected and their identification codes were concealed. The students were asked to match these 9 selected items by using a complete vita shade guide under three various light conditions (natural light, clinical light, and correcting light source). The chosen shade tabs were recorded and the correct matches were counted. Scores were calculated by adding the number of correct matches. The mean values of correct match scores with natural light, clinical light and correcting light source were 4.82, 4.75 and 6.82, respectively. There was no significant difference in correct matches scores between men and women, nor among various vita A, B, C and D shades. The students showed a better performance in shade matching under the correcting light source than natural light and clinical light. Gender had no effect on shade matching selection and there was no difference in shade matching ability among vita A, B, C, D shades. Shade matching performance is significantly improved with correcting light source.