Application of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) among Taiwanese elderly.

Purpose: To validate the Chinese (Taiwan) version of the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-49T) and develop a short form of the OHIP (OHIP-14T) for the elderly.

Methods: A total of 1402 subjects, aged 65 and above, received a personal interview and oral examination. Internal consistency, measured by Cronbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability were assessed by intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) during a 2-week interval. The criterion-related validity of OHIP-49T was evaluated through associations between the OHIP-49 score with prosthetic need and prosthetic status. A subset (OHIP-14T) questionnaire, derived through a controlled regression procedure, was compared with the original OHIP-14 by Slade (OHIP-14S).

Results: The Cronbach's alpha and ICC values were 0.97 and 0.98 for OHIP-49T and 0.90 and 0.93 for OHIP-14T. Mean scores of the OHIP-49T were significantly associated with prosthetic status (P = 0.0013) and prosthetic need (P = 0.0004), which were examined by dentists. The OHIP-14T score had stronger discriminatory ability than OHIP-14S.

Conclusions: The OHIP-49T showed satisfactory reliability and validity for this Taiwanese elderly population. The OHIP-14T is more effective to measure OHRQoL than OHIP-14S.