SynthesisGerodontology2025
Self-Reported Items That Predict the Risk of Oral Health Deterioration and the Need for Dental Referral in Older People: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Gerodontology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Validating the Short screening Tool pRedicting Oral Health deterioration in older people by the general practitioner (SHORT) in the Netherlands.BMC oral health · 2026Article
- Consensus-based development of a short screening tool predicting oral health deterioration in older people for use by general practitioners.BMC oral health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDetecting deterioration in frail oral community-dwelling older people's oral health may be delayed as a consequence of decreased visits to oral health care professionals. Older people are becoming increasingly dependent on medical care and visit other healthcare professionals, highlighting the importance of interprofessional collaboration. There is a need for an easy-to-use, time- and cost-efficient oral health assessment tool for non-oral healthcare professionals. This systematic review aimed to identify self-reported items that predict the risk of oral health deterioration in older people to inform such a tool.
methodThe OVID/Medline, Embase, EBSCO/CINAHL, and Web of Science databases were systematically searched. An additional reference check was performed to ensure that no records were missing. The primary outcome was predictive value, defined as the probability of a specific question or self-reported item predicting the risk of oral health deterioration or the need for dental referral. When available, the data were presented as sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV).
resultsThe initial search resulted in 2471 records. Eleven articles met the inclusion criteria and were analysed. A high predictive value for oral health deterioration was observed for the self-reported items: "Are you generally pleased with your mouth and teeth?" (specificity: 93.0%), "Would you say your mouth health is generally good?" (specificity: 95.2%), "Does your mouth feel dry?" (specificity: 82.7%), and "Do you have regular dental checkups?" (sensitivity: 90.0%-100%); and "Do you have tooth and/or mouth problems that make it hard to eat?" (specificity: 92.0).
conclusionA screening tool for use by non-oral health professionals, that consists of 2-4 highly predictive self-reported items, such as dry mouth, satisfaction with oral health, recent dental visits and food consumption problems, could be used for early detection and timely referral of older people at risk of oral health deterioration.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.