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Updated: Aug 23, 2026
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Comparison of patient-based oral health outcome measures
Judith A Jones1, Nancy R Kressin, Donald R Miller
1Center for Health Quality, Outcomes and Economic Research (CHQOER), Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, Bedford, MA 01730, USA. judjones@bu.edu
Objectives:
This project examined psychometric characteristics of four measures of oral-specific health-related quality of life.
Methods:
We selected participants from two samples of community-dwelling male veterans from Boston (USA): (1) 538 users of VA outpatient medical care from the Veterans Health Study (VHS: mean age = 62); and (2) 211 relatively healthy men from the VA Dental Longitudinal Study (DLS: mean age = 70). Patient-based measures included the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Instrument, the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP), the Oral Health-related Quality of Life instrument and the single-item self-report of oral health. Clinical variables included number of teeth, coronal decayed surfaces (CDS), a modification of the Root Caries Index (RCI_D), and the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Need (CPITN).
Results:
Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.73 to 0.97. Percent of participants with floor and ceiling scores varied widely by instrument and by item. Patient-based measures were associated with all clinical measures in the combined sample. Number of teeth was associated with patient-based measures (p < 0.001). However, CDS, RCI_D and CPITN scores were associated with patient-based scores in the VHS but not in the DLS. The Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Instrument, the OHIP, the Oral Health-related Quality of Life instrument were strongly linearly related to the single-item global self-report of oral health (p < 0.0001).
Conclusion:
All multi-item measures have high internal consistency and all are valid for measuring oral-specific health-related quality of life.
