Malay language child oral health impact profile-short form 19: questionnaire validation and assessment of the impact of dental caries and dental pain on children’s oral health-related quality of life

The Child Oral Health Impact Profile-Short Form 19 (COHIP-SF 19) is a shortened version of the original questionnaire developed to assess oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in children across a broad age range. COHIP-SF 19 has been translated and validated in several other languages. Objective: This study aimed to translate and validate Malay language COHIP-SF 19 (ML COHIP-SF 19), to assess its psychometric properties among Malaysian children, and to investigate the associations between dental caries, dental pain, and OHRQoL using the newly validated questionnaire. Methods: Phase 1 involved translation of the original English version using an established forward and back-translation followed by psychometric properties testing of the final version among children through Cronbach’s alpha, non-parametric Spearman’s correlation test, and Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Phase 2 evaluated the impact of dental caries and dental pain on the children’s OHRQoL using ML COHIP-SF 19 where independent t-test, Spearman’s correlation test, and multiple regression were performed. Dental caries was recorded using International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) and dental pain was measured using Faces Pain Scales-Revised. Results: Phase 1 involved 252 children (mean age=11.33 ± 1.87 years). The overall scores of ML COHIP-SF 19 ranged from 20 to 75 (55.67 ± 10.45) with high internal consistency (a=0.81). The convergent validity indicated that the self-perceived oral health rating had a fair correlation with the questionnaire total score and socio-emotional well-being subscale score (rs = 0.38-0.42, p < 0.05). Phase 2 involved 70 children (35 caries and 35 control) aged 12.03 ± 1.96 years with almost equal gender distribution. 52.9% of the participants reported that they had experienced dental pain. Children with dental pain had significantly lower scores (50.57 ± 9.40) compared to those without dental pain (57.79 ± 9.33) (p<0.01). Males (P=-4.65,/>=0.03), younger children (p=-1.26, /?=0.02), those without pain experience (P=-4.64, /?=0.03), and children who rated their oral health status more positively (P=4.46, p<0.01) had better OHRQoL. Conclusions: ML COHIP-SF 19 has satisfactory psychometric characteristics with an acceptable model fit and suggests the feasibility of applying it among 9-to-16-year-old Malaysian children. Although the use of validated ML COHIP-SF 19 found no significant differences in OHRQoL between children with and without dental caries, better OHRQoL was observed among children with no previous experience of dental pain.