OpenLB
Open Library of Bioscience

Data sources MEDLINE, EMBASE and LILACS were searched. Reference lists of the included publications were screened to identify other potentially relevant documents.Study selection Articles published from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2017. There was no language restriction for full-text articles as long as they had a title, abstract and description of the quality measures in English. Publications that either described the development process or described the clinimetric properties of oral healthcare quality measures for general dental care were included. Publications were only included if numerators and denominators of the quality measures were defined or could be directly derived. Editorials, randomised controlled trials, conference abstracts and letters to the editor were excluded.Data extraction and synthesis Two researchers independently screened the titles and abstracts. Information included study purpose, the country of origin, methods used to develop measures and stakeholder involvement. The data considered included the number of quality measures developed, the description, numerators and denominators of the measures and the type of quality measure as described by Donabedian ie process, structure or outcome measure. The Appraisal of Indicators through Research and Evaluation (AIRE) instrument 2.0 was then used to appraise the scientific soundness and applicability of the measuresResults Twenty-four publications were included yielding 215 quality measures. AIRE scores ranged from 38 to 78 out of 80 possible points. The majority of measures (n = 71) referred to treatment and preventive services. Comparably, few measures referred to the domain patient safety (n = 3). The development process of measures often exhibited a lack of involvement of patients and dental professionals. Few projects reported on the validity (n = 2) and reliability (n = 3) of the measures. Four projects piloted the measures for implementation in practice.Conclusions Provides an overview of existing quality measures in oral healthcare. Potential opportunities include the piloting and testing of quality measures and transparent data reporting on the quality of oral healthcare.