Dental Public Health & Evidence-Based Dentistry Flashcards

What is the Cochrane Collaboration and its relevance to dental practice?

Answer: An independent non-profit organisation producing high-quality systematic reviews — Cochrane Oral Health publishes reviews directly relevant to clinical dentistry

Cochrane is the internationally recognised source of high-quality systematic reviews; Cochrane Oral Health group produces reviews on clinical questions directly applicable to dental practice, supporting evidence-based decision-making.

What is the definition of 'sensitivity' of a diagnostic test?

Answer: The proportion of those who truly have the disease who test positive — TP/(TP+FN) — the test's ability to detect true disease

Sensitivity = TP/(TP+FN) — a highly sensitive test correctly identifies most true disease cases; a low-sensitivity test misses cases (false negatives). High sensitivity is important when missing disease would be harmful.

What is 'specificity' of a diagnostic test?

Answer: The proportion of disease-free people who correctly test negative — TN/(TN+FP) — the test's ability to exclude disease

Specificity = TN/(TN+FP); a highly specific test correctly excludes disease in people who do not have it, minimising false positives. High specificity is important when a false positive would lead to harmful overtreatment.

What is the Hawthorne effect in dental research?

Answer: Participants modify their behaviour because they know they are being observed — potential source of bias in dental clinical trials

The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity bias where study participants alter their behaviour (e.g., improving oral hygiene) simply because they know they are being studied, potentially inflating intervention effects.

What is the purpose of randomisation in a clinical trial?

Answer: Distribute known and unknown confounding variables equally between groups, reducing selection bias — allowing causality to be inferred

Random allocation ensures that both measured and unmeasured confounders are distributed between intervention and control groups by chance, making the groups comparable at baseline and allowing causal inference from the results.

What is the GRADE system used for in evidence-based dentistry?

Answer: Grading the quality (certainty) of evidence and strength of recommendations from systematic reviews and clinical guidelines

GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) classifies evidence quality as high, moderate, low, or very low, and recommendation strength as strong or weak, guiding clinical guideline development.