Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Adult Dental Patients: A Systematic Review

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are used beside disease-oriented outcomes (eg, number of teeth, clinical attachment level) to better capture the impact of diseases or interventions. To assess PROs for dental patients (dPROs), dental PRO measures (dPROMs) are applied. The aim of this systematic review was to identify generic dPROMs for adult patients and the dPROs.

This systematic review searched the MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO databases along with hand searching, through December 2017, to identify English-language, multi-item dPROMs that are oral health generic, that is, they are applicable to a broad range of adult patients.

We identified 20 questionnaires that contained 36 unique dPROs. They were measured by 53 dPROMs. dPRO names (N = 36) suggested they could be grouped into four dPRO categories: (1) Oral Function (N = 11), Orofacial Pain (N = 7), Orofacial Appearance (N = 3), and Psychosocial Impact (N = 14), as well as an additional dPRO that represented perceived oral health in general. Only eight questionnaires had a specific recall or reference period. dPROM's score dimensionality was only investigated in 13 of the 20 questionnaires.

The identified 36 dPROs represent the major aspects of an adult dental patient's oral health experience; however, four major dPRO categories, that is, Oral Function, Orofacial Pain, Orofacial Appearance, and Psychosocial Impact, summarize how patients are impacted. If multi-item, oral health-generic dPROMs are to be used to measure patients' suffering, the 53 dPROMs represent current available tools. Limitations of the majority of these dPROMs include incomplete knowledge about their dimensionality, which affects their validity, and an unspecified recall period, which reduces their clinical applicability.