Abstract

PURPOSE
Accurately assessing treatment outcomes has become increasingly important for maintaining hospital privileges. When these assessments are based on the judgment of the treating doctor, there is often an inherent positive bias. As a result, there has been increased interest in using patient-based assessments. The purpose of this study was to compare doctor's and patient's assessments of the outcomes of treatment in a series of patients with various temporomandibular disorders (TMDs).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Fifty-two consecutive TMD patients were initially given a questionnaire designed to evaluate their pain, problems eating and sleeping, the occurrence of headache and earache, the presence of temporomandibular joint pain and/or jaw stiffness in the morning, and interference with daily activity. The patients then filled out the same questionnaire at each post-treatment visit, and the findings were compared with the baseline information. At each visit, the treating doctor also recorded a global evaluation of the patient's progress as excellent, good, fair, or poor.
RESULTS
Comparison of the doctor's global evaluation with the patient's evaluation based on the questionnaire showed a discrepancy in 44% of the cases. When there was a discrepancy, the doctor scored the improvement better than the patient 54.5% of the time and worse than the patient 45.5% of the time.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study confirm the unreliability of using a global opinion by the treating doctor for outcome assessment in patients with various TMDs.

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Ness GM, Laskin DM

Institution

Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Dentistry, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Source

Journal of oral and maxillofacial surgery : official journal of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons 70:7 2012 Jul pg 1531-3

MeSH

Activities of Daily Living
Arthroplasty, Replacement
Arthroscopy
Attitude of Health Personnel
Dentists
Dislocations
Earache
Eating
Facial Pain
Headache
Humans
Mastication
Occlusal Splints
Osteoarthritis
Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
Paracentesis
Patient Satisfaction
Questionnaires
Reproducibility of Results
Sleep
Temporomandibular Joint Disorders
Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction Syndrome
Treatment Outcome

Pub Type(s)

Comparative Study
Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22542335