Measuring oral health status: Theoretical and methodological challenges

Development of oral health status indexes poses a set of theoretical and methodological challenges. Although the amount of work done on oral health indexes is far less that done on general health indexes, to date those developed share many of the same theoretical assumptions. For the most part they have shared the dominant biomedical paradigm and the underlying theory of illness. These theories significantly influence both the instruments developed to measure oral health and the methods of measurement adopted. More recently alternative, holistic theories of illness have been proposed and there has been a shift from instruments focused on the provider to those focused on the patient and a move from objective to subjective measures of oral health. Furthermore the relationship between oral health and general health has received insufficient attention. The paper examines the relationship between the theories of illness, methods of measurement, and oral health indexes and suggests that other holistic, patient centered, paradigms, using qualitative methods, should also be considered in the construction or oral health indexes.