The Spanish Language 5-Item Oral Health Impact Profile

Objective: To test validity and reliability of the Spanish version of the 5-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-Sp5). Methods: Spanish-speaking dental patients (n = 331, response rate = 61%, age: 42.9 + 12.3 years, 59% female) with a scheduled appointment at HealthPartners dental clinics in Minnesota, USA, were investigated. To assess score reliability, we computed Cronbach’s alpha, expecting ‘good’ reliability (alpha > 0.70). To assess score validity, we correlated the OHIP-Sp5 summary score with five OHRQoL measures [49- and 14-item OHIP-Sp, the Spanish version of the General Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI-Sp), the Spanish version of the Oral Impacts on Daily Performances (OIDP-Sp) and a Global Oral Health Assessment]. We expected a pattern of ‘very large’ (r > 0.70) correlation coefficients for OHIP-Sp5 relationships with the two longer OHIP-Sp versions and ‘large’ (r > 0.50) correlation coefficients for the other three measures. Results: Patients had a mean OHIP-Sp5 score of 3.7 (SD = 4.0). The Instrument’s reliability was, as expected, ‘good’, according to the Cronbach’s alpha statistic of 0.83. The Instrument’s validity was supported by the expected pattern of validity coefficients. OHIP-Sp5 summary scores correlated with OHIP-Sp14 as well as with OHIP-Sp49 (both r = 0.95: ‘very large’ effect) and with GOHAI-Sp, OIDP and the Global Oral Health Assessment with r = −0.80, 0.73, and −0.56 (absolute effect magnitude all ‘very large’ or ‘large’), respectively. Conclusions: The Spanish version of OHIP-5 is a brief and psychometrically sound instrument to measure oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) in Spanish-speaking populations. It can effectively replace longer OHIP instruments and would be applicable across all settings of clinical practice and research.