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Published on: February 2, 2020
An investigation into the use of a dental hygienist in school screening
G M Hawley1, Y Wainwright-Stringer, R Craven
1Mancunian Community Health NHS Trust, Manchester, UK.
Objective:
A pilot study to measure the validity of using a hygienist to carry out school screening.
Design:
Following a standard training programme a dental hygienist (DH), recruited from general practice, a newly appointed dental officer (DO) and an epidemiologist (SDO), who acted as the standard, all screened the same group of school children on two occasions.
Setting:
An inner city school with known high levels of disease.
Participants:
Ninety-eight 7- and 8-year-old children attending school.
Main Outcome Measures:
For each clinician the levels of referral, the reasons for referral and the repeatability were measured.
Results:
The hygienist referred 26 children (27%) for further examination while the DO and the SDO both referred 61 (62%). The DO achieved the required standards of sensitivity and specificity when results were compared with the SDO but the hygienist did not. Intra-examiner reliability in all three clinicians was good.
Conclusions:
The standard training programme used to prepare dental officers to carry out school screening to an agreed standard was insufficient for this hygienist's needs.
