The occlusal index: A system for identifying and scoring occlusal disorders

Abstract

Because a lack of agreement prevails among investigators concerned with measuring occlusion for epidemiologic purposes, an attempt has been made to develop an index of occlusion which would serve for these purposes. This index was called the Occlusal Index (OI). The methods of scoring the nine characteristics used in the OI have been presented. These characteristics included dental age, molar relation, overbite, overjet, posterior cross-bite, posterior open-bite, tooth displacement (actual and potential), midline relations, and missing permanent maxillary incisors. The scoring mechanism was briefly utilized. The OI was tested for validity, validity during time, and intra-examiner reliability. The OI appears to correlate highly (r s = 0.920) with the clinical standard, indicating high validity; the OI also appears to be valid during time, since the average group scores did not decrease during time. Intra-examiner reliability was very high (r s = 0.963). A subjective classification of occlusion which could be used to interpret the OI scores was devised. This subjective classification and a suggested range for each class were described.