Validation of a French language version of the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS)

Background: An English language oral health-related negative impact scale for 0-5 year old infants (the Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale [ECOHIS]) has recently been developed and validated. The overall aim of our study was to validate a French version of the ECOHIS. The objectives were to investigate the scale's: i) internal consistency; ii) test-retest reliability; iii) convergent validity; and iv) discriminant validity. Methods: Data were collected from two separate samples. Firstly, from 398 parents of children aged 12 months, recruited to a community-based intervention study, and secondly from 94 parents of 0-5 year-old children attending a hospital dental clinic. In a sub-sample of 101 of the community-based group, the scale was distributed a second time two weeks after initial evaluation. Internal consistency was evaluated through generation of Cronbach's alpha, test-retest reliability through intra-class-correlation coefficients (ICC), convergent validity through comparing scale total scores with a global evaluation of oral health and discriminant validity through investigation of differences in total scale scores between the community- and clinic-based samples. Results: Cronbach's alpha for both the child and family impact sections was 0.79, and for the whole scale was 0.82. The ICC was 0.95. Mean ECOHIS scores for parents rating their child's oral health as "relatively poor", "good" and "very good" were 10.8, 3.4 and 2.7 respectively. In the community- and clinic-based samples, the mean ECOHIS scores were 3.7 and 4.9 respectively. Conclusion: These results suggest this French language version of the ECOHIS is valid.