title: Validation of a child dental pain questionnaire instrument for the self-reporting of toothache in Children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the present study was to test the reliability and validity of a novel child dental pain questionnaire (child-DPQ).
  
  
  METHODS
  The child-DPQ is structured to measure toothache using 3 subscales: (1) prevalence; (2) severity; and (3) impact on daily life. It was tested on 174 8- and 9-year-old children. The instrument's reliability was assessed by testing internal and test-retest consistency, and its validity was assessed by testing construct and discriminant validity. Specifically, discriminant validity was tested by comparing the mean scores of 2 clinical groups: (1) absent or treated caries (N =110); and (2) untreated caries (N =64).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Internal consistency was confirmed by a Cronbac's alpha coefficient of 0.93. Test-retest reliability was found to be highly reproducible (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.99). The construct validity was satisfactory, demonstrating highly significant correlations among the global indicator, the total score, and subscale scores (P<.001). The child-DPQ score was able to discriminate between the 2 clinical groups (P<.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study provides evidence for the reliability and validity of the child dental pain questionnaire in assessing the impact of toothache on the daily life of children.
authors.affiliation: Specialist pediatric dentistry in private practice and doctoral student School of Dentistry, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. barrettoeliane@gmail.com
authors.forename: Eliane Reis
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Barrêtto
authors.forename: Saul Martins
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Paiva
authors.forename: Isabela Almeida
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Pordeus
authors.forename: Efigênia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ferreira e Ferreira
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D002648:Child; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D011788:Quality of Life; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014098:Toothache / Q000145:classification* / Q000523:psychology