Screening testing in health care

Background

There is a movement to engage oral health care professionals in administering tests
to identify people at risk of developing contagious diseases and other medical conditions.
The purpose of this overview was to provide clinicians with fundamental concepts to
understand how to evaluate a screening test’s capability to give a correct result
and its implications for practice (health outcomes).

Types of Studies Reviewed

The authors reviewed epidemiologic and statistical articles addressing the purpose
of performing screening tests for medical conditions with a special emphasis on understanding
and interpreting test results on the basis of specific test characteristics.

Results

Tests with different sensitivities and specificities will provide different probabilities
of correctly classifying people with or without a disease of interest. By understanding
how to interpret tests results and how to communicate the consequences (that is, impact
on health outcomes) of positive and negative test results, oral health care professionals
will be able to generate appropriate medical referrals and determine the need for
further testing, as well as provide a public service.

Conclusions and Practical Implications

An understanding by oral health care professionals of how to interpret screening test
results will benefit their patients substantially and, in the case of contagious diseases,
the public at large.