Diagnostic accuracy of tele‐dentistry in screening children for dental caries by community health workers in a lower‐middle‐income country

Haghi Ashtiani, Gelareh ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9735-8268, Sabbagh, Sedigheh, Moradi, Sara, Azimi and Ravaghi, Vahid 2024. Diagnostic accuracy of tele‐dentistry in screening children for dental caries by community health workers in a lower‐middle‐income country. International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry 10.1111/ipd.13157

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Abstract

Background: Tele-dentistry can be useful for dental caries screening of children,especially in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of mobile phone photographs taken bya community health worker (CHW) for caries detection in Iran. Design: Children aged 6–12 years were visually examined by a paediatric dentist. Following dental examinations, intraoral photographs were taken by a trained CHW. Two remote dentists assessed intraoral photographs for dental caries. Diagnostic accuracy of tele-dentistry for caries detection was evaluated. In addi-tion, the questionnaire about oral health and parents' views towards tele-dentistry was prepared. Results: One hundred thirty-one children aged 8.74 ± 1.62 years participated. The caries prevalence was 30% for the whole dentition. Tele-dentistry demon-strated high accuracy, with a sensitivity exceeding 80% and specificity exceed-ing 90%. The inter-rater reliability for remote dentists' assessments to the goldstandard dental examination ranged from substantial to almost perfect (kappa:75%–93%). Additionally, 80% of parents whose children participated in this studyhad positive views towards tele-dentistry. Conclusion: Tele-dentistry was shown to be an alternative approach to clinicalexaminations for caries detection among school children. Employing non-dentalcare professionals in tele-dentistry has been emerged as a reliable and cost-effective approach, especially in LMICs.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Dentistry
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1365-263X
Date of Acceptance:	27 December 2023
Last Modified:	08 Aug 2024 09:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171235

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