Comparison of Partial Recording Protocols in Disease Assessment among Periodontitis Patients in a Central Indian Population

Objectives: Partial recording protocols may be used for the purpose of assessing periodontal disease extent and severity in epidemiological studies. As there is very little data at present regarding the reliability of any partial examination methods among Indian populations, as an initial study, an attempt was made to determine the reliability of 9 different protocols in estimating the extent and severity of periodontal disease among periodontitis patients in a central Indian population. Study Design: Probing depths (PD) and clinical attachment levels (CAL) were recorded in 85 periodontitis patients on 6 sites on all the teeth excluding the third molars. Nine partial recording protocols (PRP) were compared with the full-mouth examination. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated for mean PD, mean CAL, and percentage of sites with various thresholds of PD and CAL to determine the agreement between the PRP and the full-mouth examination. The sensitivity of different PRP for defining prevalence of sites with PD ≥6 and ≥7 mm and CAL ≥7 and ≥8 mm was also determined. Results: For all the tested PRP, the ICCs were consistently >0.9. The methods involving examination of 4 sites/ tooth slightly over-estimated the disease extent and severity in comparison with the full-mouth examination as well as PRP involving examination of 6 sites/tooth. Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest that the tested PRP are in good agreement with the fullmouth examination. However, further studies need to be conducted with an improved methodology in a larger sample of subjects from the general population