Oral Disease, Impairment, and Illness: Congruence Between Clinical and Questionnaire Findings

Abstract

In 1992 a questionnaire was sent to 50-year-olds in two Swedish counties. These self-report data were compared with clinical observations with regard to number of teeth, removable dentures, caries, and periodontitis. Complete information from both data sources was obtained for 1041 persons. The relevant questionnaire item explained 71% of the missing tooth variance. An agreement of 0.91 (Cohen's kappa) was obtained for removable dentures. A question about problems in opening the mouth differentiated clearly with regard to measured mouth opening ability. Toothache and tooth sensitivity were reported with 95% probability when having 22 decayed teeth and with 46% when there were no decayed teeth (58% correctly predicted). Two teeth with pockets > or = 6 mm gave 5% probability and 22 such teeth gave 39% probability of reporting migration of front teeth. The main conclusion from this study is that there is good correspondence between subjective self-reports and clinical findings, especially for those conditions that are relatively easy for the patient to observe, such as the number of teeth and the presence of dentures. Thus questionnaire data can be used for information and screening about some well-defined oral conditions.

Association between tooth loss and overweight/obesity among Brazilian adults: the Pró-Saúde Study

“…Regarding self-reported tooth loss, its validity has been shown using clinical examinations as the gold standard. 28 Any method for evaluating dietary intake is flawed in some way, and there is no gold standard for nutritional questionnaires; nevertheless, data for evaluating food consumption and nutritional intake in a population should be considered. 29 The lack of data related to sugar consumption in this study does not constitute a strong limitation, because the absolute intake of fat and sugar are strongly correlated.…”

A Multilevel Approach on Self-Reported Dental Caries in Subjects of Minority Ethnic Groups: A Cross-Sectional Study of 6440 Adults

“…The implemented IEG, last dental visit, and Unmet dental need were statistically significant (in bold) a Adjusted for age, gender, education level, no flossing, frequency of toothbrush \twice a day, frequency of toothbrush change [2 months, last dental visit [1 year and unmet dental need hierarchical model contemplated factors from the contextual level as being mediators to the entire complex of individual determination. Self-reported health status is an alternative to clinical dental caries evaluation [6,7], and SRDC is considered valid for population-based health surveys [6,8]. In dentistry, self-reported knowledge is an economically reasonable opportunity for assessing oral health disorders in population-based multidisciplinary studies and reduces the necessity for time-consuming clinical examinations [6][7][8].…”

“…Self-reported health status is an alternative to clinical dental caries evaluation [6,7], and SRDC is considered valid for population-based health surveys [6,8]. In dentistry, self-reported knowledge is an economically reasonable opportunity for assessing oral health disorders in population-based multidisciplinary studies and reduces the necessity for time-consuming clinical examinations [6][7][8].…”

“…Self-reported health status is contemplated an acceptable, adequate mode of the evaluation of the occurrence of disorders in the general populace and is an alternative to clinical dental caries evaluation [6,7]. Silva et al [6] described that self-reported dental caries (SRDC) is valid for population-based health surveys; additionally, it has been used in recent epidemiological studies [6,8].…”

The Determinants of Self–Rated Oral Health in Istanbul Adults

“…In this study, the association was further analyzed by creating two categories of remaining teeth (1-19 and 20-32 teeth), because these criteria for the number of teeth are widely used in research from several different age groups and in different countries (Axelsson & Helgadottir, 1995;Pitiphat et al, 2002;Ueno et al, 2010;Unell et al, 1997). Studies show that the number of natural teeth estimated by questionnaires is in good agreement with clinical examinations ( Pitiphat et al, 2002;Unell et al, 1997) and patients' reported number of remaining teeth provide reasonably valid data on the actual number of teeth within a population group (Ueno et al, 2010). Furthermore, self-reported data would be used for measuring oral health conditions in populations at lower cost, less resource involvement and within shorter timeframes (Jones et al, 2001).…”