Transcultural adaptation and reliability of the spanish version of a questionnaire of oral hygiene advice given by dentists in Chile

Aim: To adapt and evaluate validity-reliability the spanish version of the questionnaire for oral hygiene advice given by dentist in Chile. Materials and methods: Validation study conducted according COSMIN recommendations. The original questionnaire in english was adapted to spanish by translation, back translation, expert review and pilot test sample of 56 dentists. The instrument consisted of 3 sections: recommendations for oral hygiene, relevance given to the delivery of oral hygiene instruction and training and experience in delivering oral hygiene recommendations. It was reapplied in 5 of them a week later. Reliability was measured by internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), test-retest (Cohen's kappa and weighted kappa) and measurement error (limits of agreement, LdA). Content validity was evaluated by experts and construct validity through convergent validity (Pearson correlation). Results: A good level of internal consistency that applies to 5 items (Cronbach's alpha = 0.73) was obtained. For items of nominal scale the Cohen kappa coefficient was 0.80 (95% CI = 0.64 to 0.95) and for ordinal items weighted kappa coefficient (linear weighting) was 0.76 (95% CI = 0.65 to 0.88). The difference between the scores calculated for the measurements was 1 standard deviation 2.35. 95% of the differences were between -5.7 to 3.7 (+/- 4.7 LdA = 1) and the variance of the total score was 29 to 41. A good level of convergent validity (Pearson correlation = 0.63) was obtained. Conclusion: The final questionnaire obtained is valid and reliable for use in chilean dentists with a profile like those included in this study to identify and quantify the oral hygiene instruction they provide to patients. Future studies should assess the validity and reliability of this adaptation other spanish-speaking countries.