A comparison between the findings of a routine school dental inspection and epidemiological data from the same five...

This study examines the need for standardised examiners to collect data on 5-year-old children. Data collected at routine school inspections by non-standardised dental officers are compared with data collected by a standardised epidemiologist using the criteria recommended by the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry. Both sets of data were gathered from one sample of 638 children. Comparisons between results are made for the total sample, for the three health districts concerned and at individual school level. For the total sample there was a mean difference of 0.05 dmft between the dental officers' data and the epidemiologist's data but in one district identical results were achieved. Comparisons between districts showed that both data sets identified the same statistically significant differences; for example, both showed one district to have significantly higher levels of caries than the other two. At individual school level regression analysis gave a very high level of agreement (r = +0.94) between the two data sets. If mean values of dmft continue to be reported as indicators of child dental health, data collected at routine dental inspections on large samples may be adequate for this age group.