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Diagnostic accuracy of parents’ ratings of their child’s oral health-related quality of life

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Abstract

Purpose

Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in children and adolescents can be assessed with two different approaches: children can directly report their own perceptions or parents can serve as proxies and rate their child’s OHRQoL from their perspectives. It was the aim to investigate whether parents can accurately rate their children’s OHRQoL and to compare agreement between OHRQoL domains and between age groups.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, a sample of 140 children aged 7–17 years was consecutively recruited at a university-based orthodontic clinic and a public school. OHRQoL was assessed with the 19-item Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP) with one version for the child and one for the parent. Correlation between child and parent ratings and diagnostic accuracy of the parental rating to assess children’s OHRQoL was calculated, and findings were compared between 7–11- and 12–17-year-old children.

Results

COHIP summary score differed only slightly between parents (mean 60.7 ± 9.8 points) and children (mean 61.9 ± 8.9 points). Correlation of summary scores was r = 0.38, corresponding to a moderate agreement. Median of item prevalence of all 19 items was 29.5 % for children and 41.7 % for parents. Median of positive predictive values was 50.9 % and median of negative predictive values 76.7 %, with no substantial differences in age groups.

Conclusions

Parents’ perception of their children’s OHRQoL is not accurate enough to detect oral health problems in an individual child aged between 7 and 17 years, and therefore, proxy OHRQoL assessment for individuals in this age group cannot be recommended.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Julia Neuschulz (Department of Orthodontics, University Medical Center of Cologne), Dr. Elisabeth Schüler and Professor Christian Splieth (both Department of Preventive and Pediatric Dentistry, School of Oral Health, University of Greifswald) for their help in collecting the data.

Authors contribution

All authors participated in the design of the study. DRR and MTJ performed the statistical analyses. DRR drafted the manuscript with the help of MTJ and IS. DS has contributed to the interpretation of the data and results of the statistical analyses, and has critically revised the paper. All authors have reviewed the final version of the manuscript, approved it for publication, and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Funding

This study was partly funded by the German Orthodontic Society (DGKFO; grant reference: 49). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Prosthetic Dentistry, Center for Dental and Oral Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany

    Daniel R. Reissmann

  2. Department of Diagnostic and Biological Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Mike T. John

  3. Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Mike T. John

  4. Department of Public and Child Dental Health, Dublin Dental University Hospital, Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Darius Sagheri

  5. Department of Orthodontics, Dentofacial Orthopedics and Pedodontics, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Ira Sierwald

Authors
  1. Daniel R. Reissmann
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  2. Mike T. John
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  3. Darius Sagheri
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  4. Ira Sierwald
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel R. Reissmann.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Cologne University Hospital’s Research Ethics Committee (Reg.-No. 07-161). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all parents/legal guardians of children prior to their enrollment in the study.

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Reissmann, D.R., John, M.T., Sagheri, D. et al. Diagnostic accuracy of parents’ ratings of their child’s oral health-related quality of life. Qual Life Res 26, 881–891 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-016-1427-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-016-1427-y

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