ArticleBMC oral health2020
Validation of maternal report of early childhood caries status in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Article in BMC oral health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of dental caries in the primary, mixed and permanent dentitions in Nigeria: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2026Pooled it
- Factors Associated With Parent-Reported Caries in Preschool Children From the KUNO-Kids Health Study-Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2026Article
- Risk indicators for dental caries among preschoolers, school children/adolescents and adults in Nigeria: a scoping review.BMC oral health · 2025Article
- Validity of mother-child self-perceived oral health for the assessment of 5 years old children's oral health in Indonesia.BMC oral health · 2023Article
- Validation of self-reported oral health among Indonesian adolescents.BMC oral health · 2021Article
- Epidemiological profile of early childhood caries in a sub-urban population in Nigeria.BMC oral health · 2021Article
- Guardian Reports of Children's Sub-optimal Oral Health Are Associated With Clinically Determined Early Childhood Caries, Unrestored Caries Lesions, and History of Toothaches.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo determine the validity of maternal reports of the presence of early childhood caries (ECC), and to identify maternal variables that increase the accuracy of the reports.
methodsThis secondary data analysis included 1155 mother-child dyads, recruited through a multi-stage sampling household approach in Ile-Ife Nigeria. Survey data included maternal characteristics (age, monthly income, decision-making ability) and maternal perception about whether or not her child (age 6 months to 5 years old) had ECC. Presence of ECC was clinically determined using the dmft index. Maternally reported and clinically determined ECC presence were compared using a chi-squared test. McNemar's test was used to assess the similarity of maternal and clinical reports of ECC. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, absolute bias, relative bias and inflation factor were calculated. Statistical significance was determined at p < 0.05.
resultsThe clinically-determined ECC prevalence was 4.6% (95% Confidence interval [CI]: 3.5-5.0) while the maternal-reported ECC prevalence was 3.4% (CI 2.4-4.6). Maternal reports underestimated the prevalence of ECC by 26.1% in comparison to the clinical evaluation. The results indicate low sensitivity (9.43%; CI 3.13-20.70) but high specificity (96.9%; CI 95.7-97.9). The positive predictive value was 12.8% (CI 4.3-27.4) while the negative predictive value was 95.7% (CI 94.3-96.8). The inflation factor for maternally reported ECC was 1.4. Sensitivity (50.0%; CI 6.8-93.2) and positive predictive value were highest (33.3%; CI 4.3-77.7) when the child had a history of visiting the dental clinic.
conclusionsMothers under-reported the presence of ECC in their children in this study population. The low sensitivity and positive predictive values of maternal report of ECC indicates that maternal reporting of presence of ECC may not be used as a valid tool to measure ECC in public health surveys. The high specificity and negative predictive values indicate that their report is a good measure of the absence of ECC in the study population. Child's history of dental service utilization may be a proxy measure of presence of ECC.
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