Dimensional structure and preliminary results of the external constructs of the schizophrenia coping oral health profile and index (SCOOHPI)

Abstract

The Schizophrenia Coping Oral Health Profile and Index (SCOOHPI) was developed to assess oral health coping strategies in people with schizophrenia. We show that the difficulty and discrimination indices of 18 items, selected for the final version, are acceptable according to the Rasch model, as are the inter-item (0.25) and inter-score (α = 0.85) correlations. This scale can be considered as an index, giving a global score between 0 and 72, with a Likert scale with five response modalities. This is also a profile with the following three dimensions of coping-related oral health, emerging independently of each other: (1) physical well-being strategies (α = 0.72); (2) moral well-being strategies (α = 0.60); (3) access strategies for oral well-being (α = 0.79). The sub-scores, ranging from 0 to 24, specify populations focused on the themes of coping strategies that may be most affected, depending on the subject’s characteristics and their clinical oral health status. The validation study of this scale is still in progress, to evaluate the reproducibility of the results, sensitivity to change, and reliability for other populations of people with schizophrenia.