Premium
Development of toolkits for detecting dental caries and caries experience among children using self‐report and parent report
Author(s) -
Marcus Marvin,
Xiong Di,
Wang Yan,
Maida Carl A.,
Hays Ron D.,
Coulter Ian D.,
Spolsky Vladimir W.,
Lee Steve Y.,
Shen Jie,
Crall James J.,
Liu Honghu
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
community dentistry and oral epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.061
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1600-0528
pISSN - 0301-5661
DOI - 10.1111/cdoe.12494
Subject(s) - medicine , oral health , dentistry , oral examination , family medicine
Objectives To develop child‐ and parent‐reported toolkits for active caries and caries experience in children and adolescents, ages 8‐17. Methods A sample of 398 child/parent dyads recruited from 12 dental practices in Los Angeles County completed a computer‐assisted survey that assessed oral health perceptions. In addition, children received a dental examination that identified the presence or absence of active caries and caries experience. A Multiple Adaptive Regression Splines model was used to identify a subset of survey items associated with active caries and caries experience. The splines and coefficients were refined by generalized cross‐validation. Sensitivity and specificity for both dependent variables were evaluated. Results Eleven child self‐reported items were identified that had sensitivity of 0.82 and specificity of 0.45 relative to active caries. Twelve parent‐reported items had a sensitivity of 0.86 and specificity of 0.50. Seven child self‐reported items had a sensitivity of 0.86 and specificity of 0.34, and 11 parent‐reported items had a sensitivity of 0.86 and specificity of 0.47 for caries experience. Conclusions The survey items identified here are useful in distinguishing children with and without active caries and with and without caries experience. This research presents a path towards using children's and their parents’ reports about oral health to screen for clinically determined caries and caries exposure. The items identified in this study can be useful when clinical information is unavailable.