Agreement between children aged 5-6 years and their mothers in rating child oral health-related quality of life.
BACKGROUND
Studies have assessed parent-child agreement on ratings of school-aged children's OHRQoL. There are, however, no studies on children younger than 7 years of age.


OBJECTIVE
The aim was to assess the agreement between children aged 5-6 years and their mothers regarding child's oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL).


METHODS
In this cross-sectional study, a total of 298 mother-child pairs (MCP), seeking the pediatric dental screening at the Dental School, University of São Paulo, completed the Brazilian version of the Scale of Oral Health Outcomes for 5-year-old children (SOHO-5), validated for children aged 5-6 years in Brazil. Agreement between total and items' scores was assessed using comparison and correlation analyses, by comparing the mean directional differences and by computing the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values, respectively.


RESULTS
The mean directional difference in the total scores was 0.13 (CI 95% -0.076; 0.338) and therefore not significant for MCP. The mean absolute difference for MCP was 1.26, representing 11% of the maximum possible score. The ICC for total score was 0.84 (CI 95% 0.798; 0.867) for MCP.


CONCLUSIONS
Mothers do rate their young children's OHRQoL similarly to children's self-reports. When assessing OHRQoL of children aged 5-6 years, mothers may be reliable proxies for their young children.
Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, Dental School, University of São Paulo-USP, São Paulo, Brazil.
Jenny
J
Abanto
Georgios
G
Tsakos
Saul Martins
SM
Paiva
Daniela Prócida
DP
Raggio
Paula
P
Celiberti
Marcelo
M
Bönecker
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D009910:Oral Hygiene; D011788:Quality of Life