Bhadauria Upendra Singh, Singh Sarveshwari, Paswan Pooja, Bhattacharya Pooja, Purohit Bharathi, Priya Harsh
Division of Public Health Dentistry, CDER-AIIMS, New Delhi, India.
Sardar Patel Post Graduate Institute of Dental and Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
Evid Based Dent. 2024 Dec;25(4):214-215. doi: 10.1038/s41432-024-01046-y. Epub 2024 Aug 12.
Importance of oral health during pregnancy has been well reported. To prevent the occurrence of oral diseases and maintenance of oral health, a number of guidelines have been developed by different organizations. However, despite numerous efforts in development of these guidelines, a critical evaluation of the quality of guidelines has not been carried out. Thus, we aimed to perform a systematic review to assess the quality of guidelines on oral health care during pregnancy.
PubMed, Embase, Scopus and Cochrane Databases were electronically searched in March 2024.
We included guidelines that were carried out within last 10 years and focused on oral health during pregnancy were included in this review. Guidelines focused for both oral health professionals and non-oral health professionals were included in this review. The assessment of the guidelines in this review was carried out using the AGREE II instrument. The four appraisers who carried out the assessment comprised of a gynecologists, a dental practioners, a public health expert and a dental public health professional. The instrument comprises of 23 key items within six domains and two additional global rating items.
We included eight guidelines in this review. The AGREE II showed two domains with mean score of more than 70% scores across the guidelines. A comparative evaluation of all the guidelines revealed consistently higher scores in scope and purpose (81.71 + 6.3) and clarity of presentation (71.61 + 11.7). Lowest mean scores were reported for editorial independence (47.87 + 7.21) followed by rigour of development (56.19 + 16.97), applicability (57.50 + 13.7) and stakeholder involvement domain (63.17 + 14.31).
Although many guidelines have demonstrated adherence to systematic methodologies, there still exists a scope of improvement in domains such as editorial independence, rigour of development, applicability and stakeholder involvement. Addressing these shortcomings is essential for promoting evidence-based oral health care practices and improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes.
孕期口腔健康的重要性已有大量报道。为预防口腔疾病的发生并维持口腔健康，不同组织制定了多项指南。然而，尽管在制定这些指南方面付出了诸多努力，但尚未对指南的质量进行批判性评估。因此，我们旨在进行一项系统评价，以评估孕期口腔保健指南的质量。
2024年3月对PubMed、Embase、Scopus和Cochrane数据库进行了电子检索。
本评价纳入过去10年内开展的、聚焦孕期口腔健康的指南。本评价纳入了针对口腔健康专业人员和非口腔健康专业人员的指南。本评价使用AGREE II工具对指南进行评估。进行评估的4名评价者包括一名妇科医生、一名牙科医生、一名公共卫生专家和一名牙科公共卫生专业人员。该工具包括六个领域的23个关键项目以及另外两个总体评分项目。
本评价纳入了八项指南。AGREE II显示有两个领域在所有指南中的平均得分超过70%。对所有指南的比较评估显示，范围和目的（81.71±6.3）以及表述清晰度（71.61±11.7）方面的得分始终较高。编辑独立性的平均得分最低（47.87±7.21），其次是制定的严谨性（56.19±16.97）、适用性（57.50±13.7）和利益相关者参与领域（63.17±14.31）。
尽管许多指南已表明遵循了系统方法，但在编辑独立性、制定的严谨性、适用性和利益相关者参与等领域仍有改进空间。解决这些不足对于促进循证口腔保健实践和改善母婴健康结局至关重要。
