Background: Periodontal disease (PdD) has been shown to be related to other systemic diseases. However, to assess this relationship, large epidemiologic studies are required. Such studies need validated self-report measures. The aim of this systematic review is to assess the validity of self-reported measures in the diagnosis of PdD.
Methods: The review followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar were searched up to January 2016. Two periodontal journals were searched manually. Two reviewers independently made selected studies and extracted data. All disagreements were resolved after discussion with a third reviewer. Risk of bias was evaluated. Sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio, and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. Of 933 papers found, 11 were selected for the review. All studies, except two, had acceptable quality. Four comparable studies were selected for meta-analysis.
Results: Study size ranged from 114 to 1,426 participants. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 4% to 93% and 58% to 94%, respectively. Diagnostic odds ratio was 1.4 (95% CI: 0.9 to 2.2) for the question on bleeding gums and 11.7 (95% CI: 4.1 to 33.4) for the question on tooth mobility. Heterogeneity was low for most questions except those on painful gums and tooth mobility.
Conclusions: Self-reported PdD has acceptable validity and can be used for surveillance of PdD in large epidemiologic studies. However, there is a need for large, well-designed diagnostic studies.
Keywords: Diagnosis; epidemiology; gingival diseases; periodontitis; self-assessment; self-report.