Romanian version of the oral health impact profile-49 questionnaire: validation and preliminary assessment of the psychometrical properties

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) represents a multidimensional structure, being measured by complex instruments, such as the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP). The aim of this present study is to develop and test the psychometric properties of an initial Romanian (OHIP-49Ro) version. METHODS: The original OHIP-49 version was translated using a forward-backward technique into the Romanian OHIP-49Ro, which was applied in an interview form to 150 patients of the Second Medical Clinique of Internal Medicine, Cluj-Napoca. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was applied, in order to evaluate the factor structure and construct validity of the OHIP-49Ro. RESULTS: The correlations between the OHIP-49Ro subscales were all positive and statistically significant. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients values are above 0.7 for all subscales, providing support for the internal consistency of OHIP-49Ro scale scores. Regarding the CFA, for the seven factor model, the Bentler scaled chi-square (S–Bχ(2)) indicated a value of 2193.74 (df=1091; p=0.001), the CFI a value of 0.740, the TLI a value of 0.72 and RMSEA the value of 0.82. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest a high internal consistency of the OHIP-49Ro instrument. Due to the correlations between several sets of factors, and the multiple-factorial load for several items, the OHIP-49Ro’s factorial structure requires further research on different samples and in different cultural and educational contexts.