Even though some instruments and methods exhibited good to excellent reliability and validity and can be recommended for research and clinical practice , they do not allow assessing all components of physical oral health .
OBJECTIVE This study aim ed at exploring available clinical instruments and methods for assessing physical oral health , and at identifying those with sufficient diagnostic performance .
Inter-examiner reliability of salivary diagnostic tests in a practice-based research network.
PURPOSE Patient salivary characteristics are being measured as part of the Northwest PRECEDENT ( Practice -based REsearch Collaborative in Evidence -based DENTistry ) study on caries risk assessment . Prior to the implementation of these salivary diagnostic tests in a practice -based cohort study , inter-examiner reliability was assessed for resting salivary pH , stimulated salivary flow rate , pH and buffering capacity . METHODS An initial evaluation of inter-examiner reliability of the 4 salivary tests was conducted among 6 dental auxiliary examiners using a convenience sample of 40 dental students . An in complete block design was used to assign sample s to examiners ( 3 examiners per sample and 20 sample s per examiner ) . Inter-examiner reliability testing was conducted on a patient population representative of the practice -based network in 4 member practice s. Two dental assistants per practice independently conducted the salivary tests on sample s provided by a r and om selection of 20 to 25 patients . A separate analysis was performed for each study . For each test , an inter-examiner reliability index was computed . RESULTS Results from two studies are reported . In the first , stimulated salivary flow rate demonstrated excellent inter-examiner reliability , and resting salivary pH showed high inter-examiner reliability , while buffering capacity and stimulated salivary pH had moderate and very low inter-examiner reliability , respectively . In the second , inter-examiner reliability was excellent for the stimulated salivary flow rate and the resting salivary pH. The inter-examiner reliability for the stimulated salivary pH was also high and the stimulated salivary buffering capacity test had moderate reliability . CONCLUSION The small variance in stimulated salivary pH and buffering capacity in dental students may have artificially made the reliability appear low in the first attempt at inter-examiner reliability testing . In the second study , all 4 tests had an accept able performance
Even though some instruments and methods exhibited good to excellent reliability and validity and can be recommended for research and clinical practice , they do not allow assessing all components of physical oral health .
OBJECTIVE This study aim ed at exploring available clinical instruments and methods for assessing physical oral health , and at identifying those with sufficient diagnostic performance .