Validación de un instrumento para medir el efecto de la salud bucal en la calidad de vida de adultos mayores mexicanos

objective: translate, culturally adapt, and validate a new spanish version of the oral health impact profile (ohip) for older persons in mexico city, mexico. methods: a validation study of the new version of ohip-mx-49 was carried out through interviews and clinical examinations of people aged 60 or older in the southern area of mexico city. the following variables were analyzed: sociodemographic (age, sex, marital status, level of schooling, and whether the subject lived alone), clinical (current number of teeth, coronal and root caries, dental hygiene, and the use of removable prostheses and dentures), and self-perception (of the need for dental and general health care). the ohip-mx-49 value was calculated as the sum of the scores in seven dimensions: functional limitation, pain, psychological discomfort, physical disability, psychological disability, social disability, and handicap. the internal consistency (cronbach's alpha coefficient), replicability (intraclass correlation coefficient), and convergent and discriminant validity (mann-whitney and kruskal-wallis tests) were assessed. results: of the 131 people interviewed (average age: 73.8 ± 8.3 years), 77.9% were women. high internal consistency values were obtained for the ohip-mx-49 (0.96) and the dimensions (0.79-0.86), and replicability in the instrument (0.877) and all the dimensions except social disability (0.176). the average ohip-mx-49 score was 37.1 ± 35.3; higher scores were observed in people with 1-9 teeth (p = 0.02), people who did not have coronal caries (p = 0.02), and people who perceived a need for dental care (p = 0.01). conclusions: the ohip-mx-49 is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used with older mexicans.