Testing of Lithuanian version of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 among older adults. A Pilot study.

Abstract

Objectives: To test reliability of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) questionnaire translated into Lithuanian, and to evaluate impacts of dental health status as well as factors related to it on daily wellbeing among older adults attending Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS) dental clinic.

Material and methods: The permission to conduct the present study was granted by Center of Bioethics at LUHS. OHIP-14 was translated into Lithuanian and applied on adults aged 50 and more years (n=52) who received dental treatment at university clinic in March 2015. Data about dental health status of the subjects was collected from patients' records. Gender, marital status, education and income served as background information. The data were analysed by ANOVA and Chi-square test, taking the cut-off level for statistical significance at 0.05. Reliability analysis was performed by Cronbach's alpha.

Results: The standardized Cronbach's alpha value of the Lithuanian version of the OHIP-14 was 0.924, considered as excellent. The mean total score of the OHIP-14 was 18.17 with the most commonly reported subscale of Psychological Discomfort. Just 8% of all respondents did not experience any impact from the dental health status on their daily wellbeing. There were significant differences in OHIP-14 items scores by gender, with women having higher scores for feeling tensed, self-conscious and having the unsatisfactory diet.

Conclusion: The present findings indicate that the Lithuanian version of the OHIP-14 is reliable measure to be used in further studies. The majority of the study participants reported experiencing impacts from the dental health status on their daily wellbeing, with the psychological discomfort being the most common. Female gender was associated with reporting significantly higher impacts.