The oral assessment in Down syndrome questionnaire (OADS): development of an instrument to evaluate oral health problems in individuals with Down syndrome

Objective To develop a French language instrument whose primary aim is the description of oral health status in Down syndrome (DS) individuals. Method Due to the reduced intellectual capacity in DS individuals, the instrument was designed to be completed bu their parents. Items were generated throug h a literature review plus interviews with relevant professionals and DS pa rents. Following pilot testing, the 31-item questionnaire was divided into seven domains (access, function, development. signs, pain, disability and a global evaluation of oral health status), and subjected to a psychometric evaluation of internal reliability, test-retest reliability and discriminan t validity, internal reliability was assessed through evaluation of Cronbac h's alpha or the Kuder-Richardson-20 value where appropriate. Test-retest r eliability was assessed through the evaluation of the intra-class correlati on coefficient (ICC) for each domain. Discriminant validity was assessed th rough evaluations of hypothesised differences in domain scores between diff erent groups of DS individuals by age and between DS and non-DS individuals . The theoretical domain categorisation was empirically evaluated through t he generation of inter-item correlation coefficients. Results Internal reli ability coefficients ranged from 0.43 for the disability domain to 0.83 for the function domain, while the domain ICCs ranged from 0.56 to 0.77 for th e signs and function domains respectively. For discriminant validity, the d omains largely performed as hypothesised. Finally, inter-item correlation c oefficients largely supported the proposed domain structure of the question naire. Conclusion This investigation of the psychometric properties of a pr oxy, French language, assessment of oral health problems in the DS populati on has demonstrated an instrument with good preliminary indicators of relia bility and validity.