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The T‐Health index: a composite indicator of dental health
Author(s) -
Bernabé Eduardo,
SuominenTaipale Anna L.,
Vehkalahti Miira M.,
Nordblad Anne,
Sheiham Aubrey
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
european journal of oral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.802
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1600-0722
pISSN - 0909-8836
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0722.2009.00649.x
Subject(s) - oral health , logistic regression , medicine , dental health , dentistry , ordered logit , index (typography) , proxy (statistics) , body mass index , association (psychology) , orthodontics , statistics , demography , psychology , mathematics , pathology , sociology , world wide web , computer science , psychotherapist
The aim of this study was to determine the most appropriate set of weights with which to calculate the number of sound‐equivalent teeth (T‐Health index) against perceived oral health, which was used as a proxy of oral health status. This study used data from 5,057 dentate subjects, ≥ 30 yr of age, who were participating in the Finnish Health 2000 Survey. Subjects provided information on socio‐demographic characteristics, behaviours and perceived oral health, and had a clinical examination. The T‐Health index was calculated by assigning different weights to missing, decayed, filled, and sound teeth. Thirty‐six alternative sets of weights were evaluated. The most appropriate set of weights was judged by the strength of the adjusted association between the T‐Health index and levels of perceived oral health in ordinal logistic regression models and by the invariance of this association according to the extent of restorative treatment (non‐significant statistical interaction). Among the 36 sets of weights used to calculate the T‐Health index, assigning twice the weight of a decayed tooth to a filled tooth whilst keeping the weight for a filled tooth ≤ 0.20 provided the strongest association with levels of perceived oral health and did not vary according to the extent of restorative treatment.