School of Dentistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-7450, USA.
J Public Health Dent. 2012 Fall;72(4):295-301. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-7325.2012.00337.x. Epub 2012 Apr 13.
The performance of a recently developed survey instrument that inquires about patients' experiences with the receipt of dental care was examined to evaluate its potential utility as a patient-reported outcome measure for dental care plans.
Individuals with dental insurance (n = 1,216) were surveyed using the Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Dental Plan Survey. The instrument's pre-established composite and rating scores were compared across dental insurance carriers (6 most common and all others combined) using ANOVA. In addition, each score was analyzed separately using multivariate regression with respondent and plan characteristics as independent variables.
There was significant differentiation among dental insurance carriers for three of the six scores (dental care composite, access to care composite, and dentist rating). Several respondent characteristics were associated with higher scores, including age, race, income level, and oral health self-rating. Having a choice of dental plans, and years with one's dental plan were associated with higher dental plan ratings, while having to find a new dentist to use the plan tended to lower all scores except the cost and services composite.
The results reported here reflect differences among dental insurance carriers, rather than among the many different dental plans offered by those carriers. Nevertheless, the CAHPS instrument scores reflected differences among patients' experiences (composite scores) and ratings (rating scores) across carriers, suggesting both that the instrument should be a useful tool for assessing patient-reported outcomes, and that comparisons of these outcomes should control for respondent characteristics as well as specific plan characteristics.
评估一种新开发的调查工具（用于调查患者对牙科护理的体验）在评估牙科护理计划的患者报告结果方面的潜在效用，对其性能进行了检验。
使用医疗保健提供者和系统消费者评估（CAHPS）牙科计划调查对有牙科保险的个人（n=1216）进行了调查。使用方差分析（ANOVA）比较了牙科保险提供商（6 家最常见的保险和其他所有保险的总和）之间该工具预先建立的综合评分和评级评分。此外，还使用多元回归分析了每个评分，将受访者和计划特征作为自变量。
在六个评分中的三个（牙科护理综合评分、获得护理综合评分和牙医评分）方面，牙科保险提供商之间存在显著差异。一些受访者特征与更高的评分相关，包括年龄、种族、收入水平和口腔健康自评。选择牙科计划的机会以及拥有牙科计划的年限与更高的牙科计划评分相关，而寻找新的牙医来使用该计划往往会降低除成本和服务综合评分之外的所有评分。
这里报告的结果反映了牙科保险提供商之间的差异，而不是这些提供商提供的许多不同的牙科计划之间的差异。然而，CAHPS 工具评分反映了患者在不同保险提供商之间的体验（综合评分）和评分（评分）存在差异，这表明该工具应该是评估患者报告结果的有用工具，并且这些结果的比较应该控制受访者特征以及特定计划特征。
