Development and Cross-Sectional Validation of the Denture Experience Questionnaire

<p dir="ltr">This poster outlines a study aimed to develop and validate the Denture Experience Questionnaire (DEQ), a quality of life measure for individuals who wear dentures. Tooth loss is a significant global health issue, and while dentures are a common treatment, this research sought to create a tool to measure their functional, social, and psychological impacts. The development process involved a multi-phase, mixed-methods approach. The initial phase used qualitative methods like interviews, observations, and focus groups for item generation, guided by an adapted version of the WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model. This was followed by a cross-sectional study to validate the questionnaire in two populations of partial denture wearers from the UK and the US, with 224 participants from each country.</p><p dir="ltr">The final 34-item DEQ consists of five sub-scales measuring the impact of dentures on body function, daily activities, emotion, social life, and participation restrictions. The results showed that the DEQ has good to excellent psychometric properties in both the UK and US samples, with high response rates and very few missing items. It demonstrated good internal consistency, convergent validity, and strong correlations with denture happiness scores. Mean scores for the total questionnaire and its sub-scales were found to be similar between the UK and US groups. The study concludes that the DEQ is a promising tool for exploring the everyday impacts of dentures, though further longitudinal validation is recommended</p>