Validation of the Oral health Impact Profile in Mexican elderly

The Oral health Impact profile (OHIP) has been translated and validated in a several languages, demonstrating cross-cultural validity, At the present time, there has not been validated into Spanish. Objective: To measure the reliability and validity of the OHIP-49 in Mexican elderly. Methods: Crossectional study. The OHIP was translated to Spanish and backtranslated to English by independent researchers. The instrument has 49 statements classified in 7 dimensions: Functional Limitation (D1), Physical Pain (D2), Psychological Discomfort (D3), Physical Disability (D4), Psychological Disability (D5), Social Disability (D6) and Handicap (D7). 107 subjects 60 years old and over, 22 from a private institution and 85 living independently, responded to a first interview, 102 of them were clinically examined. The dental variables evaluated were: coronal caries, edentulism, number of teeth and utilization of removable prosthesis. Four weeks later 66 persons accepted to be re- interviewed. Internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha) for the whole instrument and by dimension was estimated, as well as test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient). Convergent validity was estimated using Kruskal Wallis y Mann-Whitney tests, comparing the OHIP scores with the clinical measurements. Results: Internal consistency for the seven dimensions was above 0.7 and 0.949 for the OHIP. An association was found between number of teeth, physical disability and. No associations were found between edentulism, oral hygiene and prosthetics usage. Persons with more decayed teeth have in average a higher score in physical pain, psychologic discomfort and physical disability. Conclusions: The instrument has high internal consistency, test-retest reliability and it's significantly associated with number of teeth, decayed teeth and utilization of removable total or partial prosthesis.