Child Perception Questionnaire in Iranian Elementary Schoolers: A Psychometric Study

Abstract

Background: Child perception questionnaire (CPQ) assessing the oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL) of children is a widely-used instrument in the field. However, the instrument has not undergone validation and psychometric evaluation in Iranian population of children. The study aimed at examining the construct validity and testing the reliability of CPQ-16 in 7-12-year-old Persian-speaking elementary schoolers.Methods: From two main cities in 2018, Iran, 708 mother-child dyads were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Questionnaires were executed via interviewer-administered method. DMFT and dmft indexes were examined for divergent validity. Two built-in indexes of overall oral health (OOH) and overall well-being (OW) were used for concurrent validity. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Geomin rotation, Cronbach’s alpha, and Spearman’s correlation were executed. Results: Overall, 695 data entered the analysis. Children’ mean age was 9.72 (1.36) years. EFA indicated 11 items to compose three eligible factors, including oral problems, emotional problems, and social problems. Except for social well-being and emotional well-being, all OHQoL variables were correlated. CPQ-16, CPQ-11, and the subscales indicated significant relationships with overall oral health, except for social wellbeing. CPQ-11 compared to CPQ-16 showed a slightly higher correlation with OOH index. Only CPQ-11 and emotional well-being indicated significant associations with OW index. Whereas only emotional well-being indicated high DMFT, the CPQ-16, CPQ-11 and oral problems were associated with dmft. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.66. Conclusions: Further research on clinical sample is needed. Practitioners are suggested employing CPQ to multi-dimensionally examine the children’s’ oral health needs.