Abstract
BackgroundIn many low- and middle-income countries, insufficient human resources limit access to oral health services. Shifting clinical tasks to less specialized health professionals, such as community health workers, has been used as a strategy to expand the health workforce, especially in remote or underserved locations. The objective of this study was to evaluate the validity of periodontal examinations conducted by auxiliary nurse midwives in a rural home setting in Nepal.MethodsTwenty-one pregnant women < 26 weeks gestation from Sarlahi District, Nepal, underwent full mouth periodontal examinations measuring probing depth (PD) and bleeding on probing (BOP) on 6 sites per tooth by one of five auxiliary nurse midwives, who were trained for this study but had no previous training in dentistry. After a 15-min break, each participant was examined again by an experienced dentist. Measures of validity for PD and BOP were calculated comparing the pooled and individual auxiliary nurse midwives to the dentist. A multivariable GEE model estimated the effect of periodontal characteristics on agreement between the auxiliary nurse midwives and the dentist.ResultsParticipant mean age was 22 years (SD: ±3 years), mean PD was 1.4 mm (SD: 03 mm), and 86% of women had BOP (according to the dentist). Percent agreement, weighted kappa scores, and intraclass correlation coefficients for PD, with an allowance of ±1 mm, exceeded 99%, 0.7, and 0.9, respectively, indicating an acceptable level of agreement. Auxiliary nurse midwives tended to report higher PD scores relative to the dentist, although this over-estimation was small and unlikely to impact population-based estimates of important indicators of oral health status. GEE regression modeling indicated similar agreement for mandible vs. maxilla, left vs. right side, and PD (≤2 mm, > 2 mm), and lower agreement for posterior teeth and lingual and proximal sites.ConclusionAuxiliary nurse midwives were able to accurately conduct periodontal examinations in a rural home setting, suggesting the potential to shift tasks away from highly trained dentists and periodontal examiners in low-resource communities.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01177111 (Nepal Oil Massage Study); registered on August 6th, 2010.
Highlights
In many low- and middle-income countries, insufficient human resources limit access to oral health services
Fewer studies have evaluated the ability of Community health worker (CHW) to adopt oral health services, with most previous investigations focused on oral health promotion; diagnostic screening, typically for childhood caries; or, in limited cases, providing simple preventative services
Mean probing depth (PD) was 1.6 mm (SD: 0.3) with a range of 1 to 4 mm as measured by the auxiliary nurse midwives, and 1.4 mm (SD: 0.2) ranging 1 to 3 mm according to the dentist, a mean difference of 0.2 mm (p = 0.02) (Fig. 2)
Summary
In many low- and middle-income countries, insufficient human resources limit access to oral health services. Leading causes of oral disease include dental caries, which affect a third of the population; gingivitis, a highly prevalent condition in children and adults; and severe periodontitis, a major cause of tooth loss, found in 10 to 15% of adults [2] Disadvantaged communities, in both high- and low-income countries, have higher rates of oral disease and more limited access to oral health care, especially preventative services [3]. Nepal has only two dentists per 100, 000 people, one of the lowest ratios among South Asian countries [7] In such contexts, shifting clinical tasks to less specialized health care workers may help alleviate the human resource demand for research or programmatic purposes [8]. Shifting other aspects of preventative or therapeutic clinical oral health care to CHWs, such as screening for periodontal diseases, have not been evaluated [12]
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