Expert's opinions on the National Oral Health Examination evaluation system

Choi, Jong Hee; Cho, Hyun Jae; Bae, Kwang Hak; Jin, Bo Hyoung; Paik, Dai Il

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The Delphi study was performed in Korea to develop a consensus opinion for the quality improvement in National oral health examination, and to obtain a basic data on how to improve the evaluation system of the National health examination.
METHODS
Consensus was developed through two rounds of assessment in September and October, 2011. Seven professors and six dentists, recommended by Korean Dental Associations, were chosen as the Delphi experts. The Delphi questionnaire collected data in the following categories; management of facilities, preparation before oral screening, notice, certification of human resource, preservation of oral screening sheets, charge for oral screening, notification of agreement with using oral screening data, and the notification of oral screening results. To develop new criteria, the additional delphi questionnaire collected data in the following categories; human resource for dental screening, relevancy of instruments and facilities, a dental screening process. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with the questionnaire statements on a scale from 0 to 9 (0 indicating total disagreement and 9 indicating total agreement). The mean, coefficient of variation, median and agreement level were calculated. Agreement level was calculated by the proportion of respondents who chose more than 7. Consensus was considered to be defined when the agreement level was more than 45% in each section.
RESULTS
Consensus was achieved in every criterion except for management of facilities, charge for oral screening and notification of agreement with using oral screening data. In new criteria, consensus was achieved in every criterion except for human resource for dental screening.
CONCLUSIONS
Experts for the National Oral Health Examination in Korea achieved a consensus on certain aspects of the evaluation system of the National Oral Health Examination. It is needed to consider an improvement of the evaluation criteria on the National Oral Health Examination program.