title: The Malay version of the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (Malay-ECOHIS)--assessing validity and reliability.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS) is used to assess oral impacts on the quality of life of preschool aged children and their families. The objective of this study was to perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the ECOHIS into Malay and assess its psychometric properties.
  
  
  METHODS
  The cross-cultural adaptation of ECOHIS into Malay comprised of translating the ECOHIS into the Malay language (Malay-ECOHIS) by experts followed by face validation of the Malay-ECOHIS by a group of mothers. The Malay-ECOHIS was back translated into English and this was compared with the original ECOHIS. Minor changes were made to the Malay-ECOHIS before it was finalised. The Malay-ECOHIS' psychometric properties were assessed in terms of construct, convergent and discriminant validity as well as internal and test-retest reliability based on two separate studies involving 127 parents of 4-6 year old preschool children followed by oral examinations of 860 preschool children from 25 kindergartens from two districts in Selangor state, Malaysia. Non-parametric statistics were used to assess the relationships between the Malay-ECOHIS and the subjective and clinical outcome measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Cronbach's alpha was 0.83 and the weighted Kappa was 0.95 (intraclass correlation = 0.94). The Malay-ECOHIS demonstrated significant associations with different subjective and normative measures, i.e. levels of oral health satisfaction, perceived oral health status, perceived oral health need, toothache experience, pattern of dental attendance, and caries status of preschool children. These significant associations supported its construct, convergent and discriminant validity as well as internal and test-retest reliability.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study showed that the Malay-ECOHIS is a valid and reliable instrument to assess the negative impacts of oral disorders/conditions on the quality of life of 4-6 year old preschool children and their families in Malaysia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ellyenna81@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Azlina N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Hashim
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. zamros@um.edu.my.
authors.forename: Zamros Y M
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Yusof
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. rashidah@um.edu.my.
authors.forename: Rashidah
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Esa
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D009909:Oral Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014175:Translating