Community dentistry and oral epidemiology
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Community Dent Oral Epidemiol · Dec 2013
Comparative StudyComparison of an intra-oral photographic caries assessment with an established visual caries assessment method for use in dental epidemiological studies of children.
A cross-sectional study was conducted to compare a visual dental examination method developed by the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry with assessment of intra-oral photographs as means of detecting dental caries in 5-year-olds and 10- to 11-year-olds. ⋯ There was good intra-examiner reliability for both the visual and the photographic methods for all the examiners. There are no clinically significant differences between the photographic scores and the visual assessments using any of the metrics described. The photographic approach is therefore equivalent in diagnostic utility to the visual system and confers considerable advantages in terms of examiner bias reduction, remote scoring and archiving. These advantages must be weighed against the modest costs of the cameras and the increase time required to acquire the images.
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Community Dent Oral Epidemiol · Dec 2013
Development of a new chewing function questionnaire for assessment of a self-perceived chewing function.
To develop a new unidimensional questionnaire for patients' self-assessment of their chewing function (chewing function questionnaire: CFQ) and to test its psychometric properties. ⋯ The developed CFQ provides an assessment instrument of the hypothetical construct invoked to explain the chewing function. Psychometric properties are satisfactory demonstrating that the instrument is suitable for the assessment of a self-perceived chewing function.