COMPARISON OF 6 PLAQUE SCORING METHODS FOR ASSESSING ORAL HYGIENE

Correlation techniques were used in comparing plaque ratings obtained from six assessment and scoring methods. These included a technique for clinical assessment of 12 buccal and lingual surfaces selected as representative of the whole mouth; the same assessment technique applied to eight anterior surfaces; plainimeter measurement of plaque revealed in photographs of the eight anterior surfaces; a method involving examination of photographs and counting the number of sectioins of a tooth surface affected by plaque; and a technique involving the comparison of photographs of the teeth with criterion photographs representing five points on a plaque index, these comparisons to be made by dental hygienists, or persons with no dental training. In general, the lowest correlations (0.67 to 0.76) were obtained between scores based on surfaces selected from the whole mouth and those based on anterior surfaces only. However, measures based on photographs of anterior buccal surfaces produced higher inter-rater reliabilities (0.80 to 0.88) than the scores obtained from clinical examination of a whole mouth selection of teeth (0.30 to 0.65). Furthermore, scores obtained using criterion photographs correlated just as highly with clinical assessment of the same surfaces as did the highly objective plainimeter assessments (0.84). Data also indicate that plaque assessments made by persons with no dental training are highly correlated (0.95) with those made by dental hygienists when standard photographs are used as scoring criteria.