title: Assessment of physicians' perception of HIV+ patients' oral health.
abstract: The aim of this study was to design and validate an instrument for establishing perceptions of oral health held by physicians treating people living with HIV/AIDS. In order to design the instrument, four domains were identified that could measure the object of study and a 22-item questionnaire was created. The domains established were: knowledge of oral health; personal experience with oral health care; knowledge of oral health regarding HIV/AIDS; professional medical practices. To validate the instrument 50 physicians specializing in infectious diseases from public hospitals of Buenos Aires city completed the questionnaire using a Likert-type scale with 5 categories. The reliability of the instrument was assessed with the test and retest method at 30 days; internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha coefficient; content validity was determined by expert opinion; construct validity with the extreme groups method (Mann Whitney test, p < 0.05). All participants completed the test and retest questionnaires. Their mean age was 37.7 +/- 0.9 years; 36% were female and 64% male. The average experience in medical practice was 8.7 +/- 0.6 years. The instrument proved to be reliable as shown by the value of r(s) = 0.94 in the test-retest method; a satisfactory intra-item consistency was shown by Cronbach's alpha coefficient value of 0.91. The differences between the results of the groups of physicians in the extreme groups were statistically significant (p < 0.001). It is concluded that the instrument designed to measure the perception of oral health of physicians treating people living with HIV/AIDS is valid. However it would be desirable to enlarge the sample and determine criterion validity by comparison with other instruments.
authors.forename: Gabriel A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.forename: Silvia A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Medici
authors.forename: Luciana R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: D'Eramo
authors.forename: Noemí
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bordoni
authors.forename: Aldo F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Squassi
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003729:Dental Care; D004501:Education, Medical; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000523:psychology; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000523:psychology*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D009909:Oral Health; D010174:Pamphlets; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D064232:Visual Analog Scale