Adaptation, reliability and validity of Oral Health literacy instrument for Iranian University students: A new approach

Background and Objective: It is important to use a standardized tool that has standard questions with the power to explain people’s abilities and distinguish between them.  This research was conducted with the aim of designing, validating and standardizing the oral health literacy questionnaire among Iranian medical students.Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, which was done in the Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2021. Pre-validation and post-validation were used for validation. The quality of questions was examined by difficulty and discrimination indices. The pre-validation population included 50 students and 10 experts for validation. Post-validation population includes 354 medical students. SPSS software ver26 and Amos software ver24 were used.Results: The tool is valid based on face validity, content validity and construct validity. Totally Cronbach`s alpha was 0.768. Explanatory factor analysis showed a model with four factors named “preventive measures”, “dental care”, “oral diseases”, and “care and visit dentist” which can explain 57.07 percentages of oral health literacy variances. Pearson correlation coefficient showed significant correlation between factors. Confirmatory factor analysis showed model is fit and the model fit indices were as follows: IFI= 0.697, CFI= 0.702, NFI= 0.717, AGFI= 0.767, GFI= 0.824, and RMSEA=0.07.Based on DIF and DI indices, this tool can show the students with correct answers and differentiate the students with high scores from low performing ones. Conclusion: The current research tool has paid attention to different aspects of oral health and preventive and care measures. The approved tools include 3 factors and 22 questions.