Ak. Bolin et al., CHILDRENS DENTAL-HEALTH IN EUROPE - CLINICAL CALIBRATION OF DENTAL EXAMINERS IN 8 EU COUNTRIES, Swedish dental journal, 19(5), 1995, pp. 183-193
An epidemiological investigation has been initiated from Sweden with t
he aim to study and compare dental health, dental treatment needs and
attitudes to dental care in two well-defined age-groups, children of 5
and 12 years of age, in eight EU countries. To ensure comparability o
f the clinical registrations, data collection was preceded by clinical
calibrations of the examiners from the participating countries. All t
he examiners participated in a workshop with initial calibration exerc
ises. Agreement, expressed as sensitivity, was measured between the Sw
edish examiner acting as the reference examiner and each of the other
examiners in turn, and assessed separately for the two age-groups. For
DMFS/dmfs, agreement ranged from 44.3% to 82.2%. These results were d
iscussed and where necessary the criteria were modified and/or made mo
re stringent, so that they were clearcut and could be adhered to consi
stently. In a second calibration between the Swedish and the national
examiner undertaken in each of the seven countries, the inter-examiner
agreement (sensitivity) varied between 85.4% and 100%. The mean sensi
tivity for DMFS/dmfs after the total calibration procedures was 89.5%
for the 12-year olds and 91.7% for the 5-year olds. The mean sensitivi
ty for both age-groups together was 90.6% and the corresponding value
for specificity was 98.9%.