Parental Dental Concerns Scale: Psychometrics of a New Measure

Objectives: To assess the validity and reliability of a scale to identify parents' concerns in attending preventive dental appointments for their children. Methods: A convenience sample of parents (n=399) of pre-school children completed measures relating to dental attendance, family life, the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) and demographic information. To test the questionnaire's reliability, parents were invited to complete measures eight weeks later. One hundred and sixteen parents completed the retest. Validity was assessed using exploratory principal components analysis (PCA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the final measurement model. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach alphas, paired-samples t-tests and intraclass correlations (ICC). Results: Thirty-two items relating to dental practice attendance and family life were included in the PCA. The unrotated solution indicated that six components should be retained. A second PCA was run (with direct oblimin rotation) specifying six components, and explained 46% of the variance in the correlation matrix. Of the six components, four had acceptable alpha scores (range 0.65-0.83) when subscale items were summed: parental social exclusion, bottlefeeding, going to the dentist, and dissatisfaction with housing. Overall, the Parental Dental Concerns Scale (PDCS) also demonstrated acceptable alpha scores (α=0.83). Results from the CFA demonstrated the adequacy of the measurement model. The comparative fit index of 0.95, and root mean square error of approximation of 0.04 suggested that the model was acceptable, and chi-square/df ratio of 1.53 indicated excellent fit between the observed data and the specified model. Reliability of the PDCS was confirmed: t-test results showed no differences between occasions in scale scores, and the ICCs were highly correlated (range 0.65-0.86) and significant. Conclusion: The PDCS is a reliable and valid measure of parents' concerns in relation to attending preventive dental appointments with their children. This work was funded by the Childsmile Programme (award number: 121.804490).