DERIVATION AND VALIDATION OF A SHORT-FORM ORAL HEALTH IMPACT PROFILE

Growing recognition that quality of life is an important outcome of de ntal care has created a need for a range of instruments to measure ora l 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 que stionnaire that measures people's perceptions of the impact of oral co nditions on their well-being, Secondary analysis was conducted using d ata from an epidemiologic study of 1217 people aged 60+ years in South Australia, Internal reliability analysis, factor analysis and regress ion analysis were undertaken to derive a subset (OHIP-14) questionnair e and its validity was evaluated by assessing associations with sociod emographic and clinical oral status variables. Internal reliability of the OHIP-14 was evaluated using Cronbach's coefficient alpha, Regress ion analysis yielded an optimal set of 14 questions, The OHIP-14, acco unted for 94% of variance in the OHIP-49; had high reliability (alpha = 0.88); contained questions from each of the seven conceptual dimensi ons of the OHIP-49; and had a good distribution of prevalence for indi vidual questions, OHIP-14 scores and OHIP-49 scores displayed the same pattern of variation among sociodemographic groups of older adults. I n a multivariate analysis of dentate people, eight oral status and soc iodemographic variables were associated (P<0.05) with both the OHIP-49 and the OHIP-14, While it will be important to replicate these findin gs in other populations, the findings suggest that the OHIP-14 has goa d reliability, validity and precision.