Objectives: To develop a psychometric tool about adolescents' oral health and to test if the measure can discriminate between adolescents with high and low caries experience.
Methods: Developmental work on the measure is reported elsewhere (Stokes et al, 2003). The measure was tested for internal and overall reliability. Items that adversely affected Cronbach's alpha were removed. 378 adolescents aged 11 to 14 completed the 34-item measure. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale – strongly agree to strongly disagree. DMFT data was available for 126 participants (recruited from an RCT). For the analysis, this group were divided into two: high caries (D3T ³ 2) and low caries (D3T = 0 or 1)
Results: Factor analysis grouped questionnaire items into six factors: (1) Visiting the dentist; (2) Choice and beliefs around sugary foods and drinks; (3) Influences on oral health behaviours; (4) Norm referencing; (5) Knowledge about oral health behaviours; (6) Image. Factors (2) and (3) showed significant differences in attitudes between the high and low caries groups (p<0.05). The high caries group reported more negative attitudes towards making choices about sugary food and drink intake and more negative influences on oral health behaviours.
Conclusions: This study has developed a valid, reliable psychometric tool to measure adolescents' attitudes and beliefs in relation to their oral health. As the adolescents are being followed longitudinally, future research can examine the accuracy of the measure as a prediction tool for discriminating risk of new caries development.
This study was funded by GABA International AG (Grant No. RGDCGT)