A cross-cultural study of oral health values

The Oral Health impact Profile (OHIP) is a measure of oral-health-related q uality of life developed in Australia but being used increasingly in other populations. In view of the culturally specific nature of peoples' percepti ons of health, if we are to make between-population comparisons of oral-hea lth-related quality of life, cross-cultural equivalency of the relevant ins truments needs to be verified. A study was therefore undertaken to compare item weights generated by an Australian sample with those generated by a sa mple of English-speaking Canadians and another of French-speaking Canadians . In addition, within-group comparisons by age were performed. The items an d subscales used for the 2 Canadian samples were identical to those develop ed in Australia, although a formal French translation was used for the Fren ch-speaking sample. The method used far the generation of weights was Thurs tone's paired-comparison technique, based on the judgments of convenience s amples of subjects drawn from each of the three cultural settings. Comparis ons were made by means of intra-subscale weight rankings and magnitude. Spe arman's rank correlations of r greater than or equal to 0.6 were found for 16/21 between-group comparisons and for 12/21, 19/21, and 8/21 within-group comparisons made by age in Australia, Ontario, and Quebec, respectively. C omparisons of the magnitudes of weights found that, even when items were ra nked similarly, magnitudes could be quite different. These results suggest a reasonable degree of cross-cultural consistency, and hence validity, for the OHIP.