A systematic review to assess the methodological quality of studies on measurement properties for caries risk assessment tools for young children

Bradley Christian; Rebecca Armstrong; Hanny Calache; Lauren Carpenter; Lisa Gibbs; Mark Gussy

doi:10.1111/ipd.12446

A systematic review to assess the methodological quality of studies on measurement properties for caries risk assessment tools for young children

Int J Paediatr Dent. 2018 Nov 9. doi: 10.1111/ipd.12446. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Bradley Christian^{1

2}, Rebecca Armstrong¹, Hanny Calache³, Lauren Carpenter¹, Lisa Gibbs¹, Mark Gussy²

Affiliations

¹ Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
² Dentistry and Oral Health, La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University, Australia.
³ Deakin Health Economics, Centre for Population Health Research, Deakin University.

PMID: 30412330
DOI: 10.1111/ipd.12446

Abstract

Background: At present, there are numerous caries risk assessment tools (CRATs) being promoted for disease management. However, the evidence to inform CRAT selection is unclear.

Aim: This review aimed to assess the strength of evidence to inform the selection of CRATs for children ages 6 years and less.

Design: MEDLINE was the principal search database for this review. Other key databases, the reference lists of included articles, known cariology literature and experts were also consulted. Peer-reviewed papers describing CRATs and their development methodology were included. The COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist guided the quality assessment. The reporting of the key measurement properties (reliability, validity and responsiveness) informed the quality assessment.

Results: The search resulted in ten papers, reporting on eight different CRATs. The identified CRATs were: Caries Management By Risk Assessment (CAMBRA), Cariogram, National University of Singapore CRAT (NUS-CRAT), MySmileBuddy, Dundee Caries Risk Assessment Model, University of North Carolina Risk Assessment Models, University of Michigan pediatric dental clinic caries risk assessment sheet and American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) CRAT. Common across all CRATs was the lack of information to determine the levels of evidence for the measurement properties of reliability and construct validity. Studies on tools that were assessed as having strong evidence for content validity, identified the relevant risk factors for caries in the population being studied, before developing and testing their respective CRATs.

Conclusions: The evidence to inform the selection of current CRATs for children is mostly yet to be established. Overall, the NUS-CRAT studies reported the most information to inform the assessment of its measurement properties and as a result this tool attained a higher quality rating than other CRATs studied. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Publication types

Review