Construction and validation of the quality of life measure for dentine hypersensitivity (DHEQ)

AIM: To develop and validate a condition specific measure of oral health-related quality of life for dentine hypersensitivity (Dentine Hypersensitivity Experience Questionnaire, DHEQ).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Questionnaire construction used a multi-staged impact approach and an explicit theoretical model. Qualitative and quantitative development and validation included in-depth interviews, focus groups and cross-sectional questionnaire studies in a general population (n=160) and a clinical sample (n=108).

RESULTS: An optimized DHEQ questionnaire containing 48 items has been developed to describe the pain, a scale to capture subjective impacts of dentine hypersensitivity, a global oral health rating and a scale to record effects on life overall. The impact scale had high values for internal reliability (nearly all item-total correlations >0.4 and Cronbach's α=0.86). Intra-class correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.92. The impact scale was strongly correlated to global oral health ratings and effects on life overall. These results were similar when DHEQ was validated in a clinical sample.

CONCLUSIONS: DHEQ shows good psychometric properties in both a general population and clinical sample. Its use can further our understanding of the subjective impacts of dentine sensitivity.