Does dental trauma and its consequences influence the professional hiring process? Development, validation and application of an assessment tool

To develop and validate a questionnaire concerning the aspects evaluated during the hiring process by human resources professionals (HRPs); to apply the validated questionnaire; and to evaluate the perceptions and judgment of HRPs regarding different traumatic dental injuries (TDIs) and their consequences (TDI-Cs).The acceptability, discriminative properties, internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the developed questionnaire were evaluated, using the same methodology as the main study and adopting a pilot sample. For both the validation process and the application phase, images of one male and one female were manipulated, or not (control), to create different types of TDI (enamel fracture, enamel and dentin fracture, avulsion) and TDI-Cs (crown discoloration, tooth loss due to avulsion). In the application phase, the images were analyzed by 100 HRPs using the validated questionnaire, and the results were analyzed using the Friedman, Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests (P0.05).The developed questionnaire produced excellent acceptability, strong discriminative properties, satisfactory internal consistency and excellent to good test-retest reliability. The presence of TDIs and TDI-Cs had a negative effect on the evaluated aspects used during the hiring process (P0.001). Tooth loss provoked the worse level of judgment in all evaluated characteristics and in professional hiring.The developed questionnaire produced valid and reliable responses concerning the aspects evaluated during the hiring process by Brazilian HRPs. TDIs and TDI-Cs had a negative influence on the aspects evaluated during the HRP professional hiring process.TDIs and TDI-Cs had a negative influence on the aspects evaluated during the HRP professional hiring process.