The further development and validation of the Liverpool Oral Rehabilitation Questionnaire (LORQ) version 3: a cross-sectional survey of patients referred to a dental hospital for removable prostheses replacement.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The Liverpool Oral Rehabilitation Questionnaire (LORQ) is a health-related quality of life instrument assessing the impact of oral rehabilitation on patients' health-related quality of life (HRQOL) following treatment for oral cancer. The small number of patients wearing prostheses in previous studies limited the validation of the denture/denture satisfaction part of the questionnaire.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to further validate the LORQ by obtaining HRQOL data from patients requiring replacement dentures.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The LORQv3, together with items assessing mood and anxiety, was administered with the Oral Health Impact Profile 14-item (OHIP-14) questionnaire to 104 consecutive patients, between the ages of 40 and 79, referred by their general dentists to the department of prosthodontics at the Liverpool University Dental Hospital for replacement of removable prostheses between November 2004 and June 2005. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests compared scores between patient groups. Internal consistency was measured by Cronbach's alpha. Spearman's correlation investigated associations between items on the LORQv3 and items from the OHIP-14. Test-retest was measured by the kappa coefficient, weighted by applying standard weights according to the number of categories in error.

RESULTS

Patients wearing complete dentures in 1 or both arches generally scored worse for oral function and mandibular denture problems/satisfaction than patients wearing removable partial dentures. Thirty-three percent of patients were somewhat or extremely depressed, 25% were anxious or very anxious, and 15% were both depressed and anxious.

CONCLUSIONS

The denture section of the LORQv3 identified expected differences among various patient subgroups in this cohort confirmed by similar findings for the OHIP-14 and the literature. Thus, this part of the LORQv3 referring to dentures and patient satisfaction demonstrated good construct and criterion validity.