Background: The Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS) is a parent--assessed oral health related quality of life measure developed to assess the impact of oral health problems on preschool children.
Aim: The aim of this study was to develop a Lithuanian version of the ECOHIS and evaluate its validity and reliability among preschool children in Lithuania.
Design: A lithuanian version of ECOHIS (L-ECOHIS) was developed through a forward-backword translation. A cross-sectional study was performed to assess discriminant and convergent validity and internal consistency. Data was collected from 130 parents of 0-5 year-old children visiting the dental department. A subsample of parents filled the questionnaire again to assess the test-retest reliability.
Results: Cronbach's alpha for the instrument was 0.869. Item-total correlation coefficients ranged from 0.389 to 0.797. Scores of the child and family sections were significantly correlated (P<0.001). The scale scores indicating worse quality of life were significantly associated with poor parental ratings of their child's oral health and problem-based dental attendance. The intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.98.
Conclusion: The L-ECOHIS is a valid and reliable measure to assess OHRQoL of 0-5 year-old children with Lithuanian speaking parents.