Assessment of reports by dentists of their restorative treatment thresholds

Questionnaires have been used to determine the point when dentists think a filling ought to be placed (restorative treatment threshold). This study assesses the method. 211 general dental practitioners were interviewed and asked to identify the point at which they would instigate restorative treatment in a 12-yr-old patient from a list of descriptions of lesions affecting buccal/lingual, occlusal and approximal surfaces. They were also asked to judge the likely depth and lateral spread of the lesion they chose and to identify a photograph resembling it (buccal/lingual and occlusal surfaces) or a line drawing and description of its expected surface appearance (approximal surfaces). The Pearson correlation coefficients between reported treatment threshold and the characteristics expected to be associated with them were poor. This suggests that there may be considerable variation in opinion between dentists about the underlying condition of carious lesions of similar surface appearance. There was no evidence that the treatment opinions of these dentists have changed markedly between 1987 and early 1991.