Developing a questionnaire to measure psychological disturbance associated with tooth loss

Abstract

ObjectivesTo develop and validate a self-reporting measure to assess the psychological disturbance in adult patients with tooth loss and denturesMethods: Ethical approval obtained from the Health Research Authority NHS England (Ref:17/NI/0098). 128 participants (100 patients - 28 clinicians) were recruited to participate in the development and validation of the questionnaire. Inclusion criteria included adults (age ≥18) with tooth loss/dentures. Exclusion criteria included patients with a history of psychotic mental illness or patients who had treatment with dental implants. The development processes included: Phase 1. Development of questionnaire: describing the aims/target population of the questionnaire, generating a pool of items, defining the constructs to be measured, adapting psychological morbidity screening tools, Items reduction and producing a preliminary questionnaire. Phase 2. Validation of questionnaire: content validation, face validation, establishing construct validity, pilot testing and establishing reliability. ResultsFace and content validation indicated that the questionnaire was an appropriate tool to measure the impact of tooth loss and related psychological morbidities. Reliability analysis (Test re-test reliability/internal consistency) indicated the questionnaire has satisfactory reliability (correlation >0.7). Testing the theoretical hypothesis structure of the impact of tooth loss has also enhanced the construct validity of the questionnaire (domains correlated mildly (r>5 & <3) to strongly (r>5). Pilot testing confirmed the scale adequacy and wording clarity (>90 % of respondents). Results indicated that the developed questionnaire has adequate psychometric properties. ConclusionA disease-specific measure that assesses the psychological impact of tooth loss and the effectiveness of interventions (i.e. dentures) has been developed and validated. Clinical significantA patient outcome measure was developed which could be used to assess the psychological impact of tooth loss and compare the effectiveness of various interventions like dentures and implants.