Prevalence of self-reported versus diagnosed dentinal hypersensitivity: a cross-sectional study and ROC curve analysis

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to identify and compare the self-reported and diagnosed prevalence of dentinal hypersensitivity (DH) in an University population; and to verify accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of DH stimuli tests.

Material and methods: Three hundred and eighty patients (67.2% women and 32.8% men) were assessed by questionnaire, clinical exam, tactile and cold water tests. The intensity of DH was assessed using a visual analogue scale, and a calibrated examiner measured the scores using a caliper. The ICC for intra-examiner was 0.990. Scores above 5 mm were considered sensitive teeth. The association between variables was assessed by Chi-square test. ROC curve analysis determined accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the tests (p < .05).

Results: The mean age of participants was 24.08 years. 158 (41.7%) volunteers self-reported the presence of DH, while, 88.7% of the participants were clinically diagnosed (p = .023). In total, 8958 teeth were evaluated, of those 3367 (37.6%) were diagnosed sensitive. The most prevalent teeth with DH were incisors and premolars. The accuracy of the tests with cold water and tactile were 99%. The sensitivity and specificity for cold water and tactile tests were 99.9%, 99.7%, 99.1% and 87.6%, respectively.

Conclusion: The self-reported prevalence of DH was significantly lower than that clinically diagnosed. The cold test proved to be a highly accurate stimulus for the diagnosis of DH.

Keywords:

• Dentine hypersensitivity
• prevalence
• etiology
• ROC curve

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the 380 volunteers for their trust and participation in our research. We would like to thank the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the scholarship.

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.