Comparison of two assessment instruments of quality of life in older adults

To investigate if there is convergent validity between the dimensions of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Brief Version (WHOQOL-Bref) and the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) questionnaire.

In this cross-sectional study, a random sample of 872 elderly Southern-Brazilians was evaluated. Questionnaires assessing socio-demographic data and quality of life in general (WHOQOL-Bref) and oral health-related quality of life (OHIP-14) were used. Analysis of the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 questionnaires used descriptive statistics. The dimensions of the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 questionnaires were correlated by affinity. The convergence between WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 dimensions was analyzed by Spearman's correlation coefficients.

The social relations dimension of the WHOQOL-Bref presented the greatest mean (18.24 ± 2.30). The physical pain dimension of the OHIP-14 presented a median of 1.0 (0.0 - 3.0). All correlations between the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 dimensions were significant, negative and associated with a low magnitude. The correlation between WHOQOL-physical and OHIP-functional limitation, OHIP-physical pain, OHIP-physical disability and OHIP-handicap were - 0.164, - 0.262, - 0.196 and - 0.125 respectively. WHOQOL-psychological was associated with OHIP-psychological discomfort and OHIP-psychological disability, and WHOQOL-social showed an association with OHIP-social disability.

All correlations analyzed had a positive association of low magnitude. Despite the fact that the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 instruments have related dimensions, they measure physical, psychological and social relations differently.