title: Nursing caries in Head Start children, St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands: assessed by examiners with different dental backgrounds.
abstract: The purposes of this study were to determine the prevalence of nursing caries in 3- to 5-year-old Head Start (HS) children on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and to assess the reliability of examiners with different dental backgrounds. A dentist, hygienist, and nondental HS personnel participated in a 1/2 day training session (lecture and workshop) and then independently conducted visual examinations for caries of the maxillary anterior teeth including nursing caries. Twenty-three HS personnel examined a total of 375 children; the dentist and hygienist examined a random sample of 74 and 73 children, respectively. Seventy-one children received all three independent examinations. Reliability was assessed by percent agreement, sensitivity, specificity, and kappa value. The dentist found 41% of the children had caries of the maxillary incisors, which included nursing caries. The percentage of children with nursing caries was 12%. There was strong-to-good diagnostic agreement between the dentist and hygienist. The HS personnel also found that 12% of the children had nursing caries, but the diagnostic agreement between the dentist and HS personnel was only good-to-fair.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Katz
authors.forename: L W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Ripa
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petersen
mesh_terms: D001903:Bottle Feeding / Q000009:adverse effects; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007180:Incisor / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D015995:Prevalence; D012578:Schools, Nursery; D014767:United States Virgin Islands / Q000453:epidemiology