title: Assessing the oral health-related quality of life in Iranian adolescents: validity of the Persian version of the Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the psychometric properties of an oral-health related quality of life (OHRQoL) instrument for application in the population of Iranian adolescents and to assess the discriminate and convergent validity and reliability of the Persian version of the Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP) in a representative sample of this population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using multistage stratified sampling, 597 schoolchildren aged from 13 to 18 years living in the city of Isfahan were recruited to complete the Persian COHIP questionnaire. They were also examined for dental caries and malocclusion by two trained, calibrated examiners.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall COHIP scores ranged from 15 to 135 (mean ± SD: 103.6 ± 18). Sixty-six percent of the students experienced at least one frequent oral health-related impact over the past three months. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.89 for the overall score. Discriminate validity was supported by the significant difference between COHIP scores in the caries-free group and the others (P = 0.01). In addition, the questionnaire was able to differentiate among the groups by various degrees of need for orthodontic treatment (P < 0.01). Convergent validity was confirmed by significant association between the quality of life scores, the self-perceived health and oral health ratings and the self-perceived treatment need (r = 0.36, 0.57, -0.40).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Persian COHIP demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties for the descriptive purposes. Some discrepancies observed between the clinical data and quality of life status were confirmed by the perceptual identity of such indices influenced by several overt and covert variables.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Oral Health Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Imaneh
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Asgari
authors.forename: Arezoo Ebn
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Ahmady
authors.forename: Hillary
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Broder
authors.forename: Faezeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Eslamipour
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wilson-Genderson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004245:DMF Index; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D061326:Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D008310:Malocclusion / Q000523:psychology; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009909:Oral Health; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D012931:Social Environment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014504:Urban Health