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Comparison between the DMF indices and two alternative composite indicators of dental health
Author(s) -
Benigeri Mike,
Payette Martin,
Brodeur JeanMarc
Publication year - 1998
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/j.1600-0528.1998.tb01965.x
Subject(s) - medicine , dental composite , dentistry , composite number , dental health , composite material , materials science
– The DMFT and DMFS indices employed in the majority of oral epidemiological studies have several limitations. In response to this problem, Sheiham et al. (Community Dent Health 1987;4:407–14) proposed two alternative dental health indicators: the number of functioning teeth (hereafter referred to as FS‐T) and tissue health (T‐Health). Using data from an epidemiological study on the dental health status of adults aged 35–44 from Quebec ( N =2110), this article compares the alternative indices with the conventional DMFT and DMFS indices. By comparing Pearsons correlation coefcient for the four indices in this study with the number of decayed, missing andlled surfaces, it is noted that the FS‐T index bears the strongest correlation to the three variables. It is also the only index whose correlation coefcient is greater than 0.3 for each of the three DMFS components. A risk group was created for each index, composed of the 18% of people demonstrating the poorest index. The risk groups's FS‐T index results in an average of 4.3 decayed surfaces (compared with 2.6 for the DMFT), 92.7 missing surfaces (74.4 for the DMFT) and 9.0 filled surfaces (compared with 26.9 for the DMFT). Using linear regression analysis with each index as a dependent variable, and peoples socio‐demographic characteristics, regular use of dental services and perception of dental health as independent variables, it appears that the percentage of the explained variance (R 2 ) is 21.2% for the FS‐T index, 13.8% for the T‐Health index, 12.3% for the DMFS index and only 7.6% for the DMFT index.