| dc.description.abstract | Background In the increasing population of older people there is a significant risk of developing complex oral health problems. Worldwide, 56% to 85% of dentate senior citizens suffer from periodontal diseases, particularly community-dwelling older people have poor oral health. Nurses are responsible for the daily oral hygiene of their patients by signaling and reporting oral health problems. The Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT) is a validated instrument that could help nurses with identifying oral health issues, but a validated Dutch version of the OHAT is not yet available.
Aim The aim of the study was to translate the original English version of the OHAT into a Dutch version (OHAT-NL), and to test structural validity, internal consistency and inter-rater reliability, for use among care-dependent community-dwelling older people in the Netherlands.
Methods A cross-cultural validation study was done, which consisted of two phases: translation and validation. The five steps of Beaton’s translation process were followed. The resulting OHAT-NL was then validated on care-dependent community-dwelling older people. Inter-rater reliability was determined by using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Individual items were compared using the Kappa statistic. Structural validity was determined using an exploratory factor analysis. Eigenvalues greater than one were retained in the factor structure. Lastly, the internal consistency was assessed using the Cronbachs Alpha (CA).
Results Inter-rater reliability was good with an ICC of 0.79. Agreement on item level ranged from fair to very good, kappa ranged from 0.36-0.89, with the lowest agreement on the item ‘oral cleanliness’, and the highest agreement on ‘dental pain’. The factor analysis showed that the OHAT-NL consists of four underlying concepts. The CA was 0.56.
Conclusion The findings suggested that the OHAT-NL is a reliable tool, but not valid in community-dwelling older people. The tool has to be adapted before it can be used in practice. | |
