1991 Volume 41 Issue 5 Pages 667-675
Awareness of periodontal disease is often dismissed due to lack of sufficient early symptoms of disease onset. Therefore, we developed a self-administered questionnaire for periodontal disease consisting of 45 questions concerning life style, bacterial plaque, brushing, foul breath, gums, acute and chronic symptoms of periodontal disease, experience of dental treatment, health guidance, and dental knowledge for general use by adult subjects to check their periodontal health without professional guidance. Each questionnaire item consisted of 4 alternative categories.
Validity of the returned questionnaires from 283 office workers (193 males and 90 females aged 18-62 years) was quantitatively evaluated by comparing with the data obtained from clinical periodontal examinations. A total of 20 questionnaire items such as brushing habits, gum condition and chronic symptoms were statistically correlated with the severity of periodontal disease.
In this study, we defined these 20 items as the explanatory variables influencing the severity of periodontal disease and both subject groups selected on the basis of gingival index as objective variables. Results of analysis by the Quantification Theory II indicated that 20 items of the self-administered questionnaire were closely related in discriminating between periodontally sound and affected subjects (rate of correct discrimination: 72.8%, sensitivity: 91.4%, specificity: 43.1%). These results suggest that our self-administered questionnaire is effective as a self-check for periodontal disease.
