Implicit Association Test: a possible tool for screening patients for orthognathic surgery

Abstract

In orthognathic surgery, many serious medical disputes and postsurgical dissatisfactions are not caused by the doctors' reasons, but due to the patients' psychological problems. These adverse events obsess not only surgeons, but also patients to a great extent. An effective method is expected to screen patients for orthognathic surgery. So far, most selecting approaches in orthognathic surgery are based on explicit cognition, which inevitably include the following faults: patients' intentional concealment, uncertain errors, and imprecise subjective judgment from the doctors. However, these errors can be avoided by the tests based on implicit cognition, i.e., Implicit Association Test (IAT). Avoiding the faults of explicit cognition, IAT is an objective, quantitative, and easily applicable mental measurement method. We hypothesized that all the patients for orthognathic purpose should have an IAT screening before treatment. By IAT method, the right patients for orthognathic surgery can be picked out. As a result, postoperative dissatisfaction, medical dispute, and even violent conflict can be avoided to a great extent. To the best of our knowledge, there is no relevant report on the use of IAT as a tool to select the right orthognathic patients to avoid postsurgical dissatisfaction, medical disputes and violent conflict events.