Development of an oral health-related quality of life questionnaire on neurosensory disturbances after orthognathic surgery - a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE

Development of a new questionnaire, Oral Health-Related Quality of Life - Neurosensory Disturbances after Orthognathic Surgery (OHRQL-NDO), designed to measure the effects of neurosensory disturbance (NSD) on patients' oral health-related quality of life (OHRQL) and to evaluate reliability and validity of this questionnaire.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A questionnaire including 11 items was constructed. Thirty patients with NSD affecting the lower lip and/or chin following orthognathic surgery were included. Convergent validity was assessed by comparing OHRQL-NDO with OHIP-14 and two global questions. Test-retest reliability was assessed by asking the patients to complete OHRQL-NDO at two different occasions with an interval of two to three weeks.

RESULTS

The internal consistency, measured with Cronbach's alpha, was 0.84. The test-retest reliability, measured with ICC, was 0.89 (95% CI 0.77-0.95). The correlation between the mean sum score for the OHRQL-NDO and the mean sum score for the OHIP-14 was  = 0.75, using Pearson correlation coefficient. The correlations between the mean total score for the OHRQL-NDO and the global questions 1 and 2 were  = 0.74 and  = 0.72, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The current instrument OHRQL-NDO is a promising test, but needs further development to better capture the different aspects of OHRQL. Further tests of the questionnaire must follow in other samples to finalize the instrument.