There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
Growing recognition that quality of life is an important outcome of dental care has
created a need for a range of instruments to measure oral health-related quality of
life. This study aimed to derive a subset of items from the Oral Health Impact Profile
(OHIP-49)-a 49-item questionnaire that measures people's perceptions of the impact
of oral conditions on their well-being. Secondary analysis was conducted using data
from an epidemiologic study of 1217 people aged 60+ years in South Australia. Internal
reliability analysis, factor analysis and regression analysis were undertaken to derive
a subset (OHIP-14) questionnaire and its validity was evaluated by assessing associations
with sociodemographic and clinical oral status variables. Internal reliability of
the OHIP-14 was evaluated using Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Regression analysis
yielded an optimal set of 14 questions. The OHIP-14 accounted for 94% of variance
in the OHIP-49; had high reliability (alpha = 0.88); contained questions from each
of the seven conceptual dimensions of the OHIP-49; and had a good distribution of
prevalence for individual questions. OHIP-14 scores and OHIP-49 scores displayed the
same pattern of variation among sociodemographic groups of older adults. In a multivariate
analysis of dentate people, eight oral status and sociodemographic variables were
associated (P < 0.05) with both the OHIP-49 and the OHIP-14. While it will be important
to replicate these findings in other populations, the findings suggest that the OHIP-14
has good reliability, validity and precision.