Diagnostic accuracy of tele‐dentistry in screening children for dental caries by community health workers in a lower‐middle‐income country

Jan 10, 2024International journal of paediatric dentistry

How well remote dental check-ups by health workers find cavities in children in a lower-middle-income country

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

The caries prevalence among 131 children aged 8.74 ± 1.62 years was 30%.

Tele-dentistry showed high diagnostic accuracy for caries detection, with sensitivity exceeding 80% and specificity exceeding 90%.
Inter-rater reliability between remote dentists' assessments and the standard dental examination ranged from substantial to almost perfect (kappa: 75%-93%).
Eighty percent of parents expressed positive views towards tele-dentistry for their children's oral health.
Using community health workers to take intraoral photographs may provide a reliable and cost-effective alternative for caries detection.

AI simplified

BACKGROUND: Tele-dentistry can be useful for dental caries screening of children, especially in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs).

AIM: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of mobile phone photographs taken by a community health worker (CHW) for caries detection in Iran.

DESIGN: Children aged 6-12 years were visually examined by a paediatric dentist. Following dental examinations, intraoral photographs were taken by a trained CHW. Two remote dentists assessed intraoral photographs for dental caries. Diagnostic accuracy of tele-dentistry for caries detection was evaluated. In addition, the questionnaire about oral health and parents' views towards tele-dentistry was prepared.

RESULTS: One hundred thirty-one children aged 8.74 ± 1.62 years participated. The caries prevalence was 30% for the whole dentition. Tele-dentistry demonstrated high accuracy, with a sensitivity exceeding 80% and specificity exceeding 90%. The inter-rater reliability for remote dentists' assessments to the gold standard dental examination ranged from substantial to almost perfect (kappa: 75%-93%). Additionally, 80% of parents whose children participated in this study had positive views towards tele-dentistry.

CONCLUSION: Tele-dentistry was shown to be an alternative approach to clinical examinations for caries detection among school children. Employing non-dental care professionals in tele-dentistry has been emerged as a reliable and cost-effective approach, especially in LMICs.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text ↗

Diagnostic accuracy of tele‐dentistry in screening children for dental caries by community health workers in a lower‐middle‐income country

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief