Children's oral health in Italy: training and clinical calibration of examiners for the National Pathfinder about caries disease.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the dental status of 12-year-old children in 2004, an epidemiological survey called 'National pathfinder about children's oral health in Italy' was planned. The present paper describes the clinical calibration method.


METHODS
Thirty children (20 caries-affected and 10 caries-free) were selected. Seven examiners received 35 hours of training and calibration in making clinical measurements by a single trainer. The trainer's diagnosis was the benchmark validity reference. Increase in sensitivity was tested using paired Student's t-test. Inter-examiner reliability for DMFS was evaluated using Pearson's correlation coefficients and ANOVA. Percent agreement and Kappa statistics were calculated for dichotomous judgments (tooth-by-tooth analysis and caries prevalence).


RESULTS
The raters' sensitivity increased from calibration I to calibration II (p < 0.05). For DMFS a good agreement between raters was found without significant differences among them at both calibration exercises. The Pearson's correlation coefficients between all pairs of raters were significant (p < 0.001) after both calibration exercises. Tooth-by-tooth reliability was high: the strength of agreement was substantial or almost perfect in calibration I (Kappa statistics from 0.81 to 0.95) and almost perfect in calibration II (Kappa statistics from 0.92 to 0.97). Regarding caries prevalence, sensitivity, specificity, percent agreement and Kappa statistics results were high but without significant differences between individual pairs of observations in the two calibration sessions (p > 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that sensitivity measurements should be used for agreement assessments in addition to the other World Health Organization-recommended reliability measurements. Kappa statistics are the eligible measurement of reliability for dichotomous judgments.
Castiglia
Paolo
P
Institute of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Sassari, Italy.
Campus
Guglielmo
G
Solinas
Giuliana
G
Maida
Carmelo
C
Strohmenger
Laura
L
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019985:Benchmarking; D002648:Child; D004245:DMF Index; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D003945:Diagnosis, Oral / Q000193:education; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D015588:Observer Variation; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity