Validation of a persian short-form version of a standardised questionnaire assessing oral cancer knowledge,practice and attitudes among dentists

Objectives: oral cancer is a global health problem; however,many dentists lack the necessary skills,knowledge and capacity to diagnose oral cancers early. this study aimed to examine the validity and reliability of a persian short-form version of a standardised questionnaire to assess dentists’ knowledge,practice and attitudes towards oral cancer. methods: this cross-sectional analytical study was carried out in may 2015 in tehran,iran. an original 39-item english-language questionnaire developed by yellowitz et al. was translated into persian using forward and backward translation methods. a total of 15 dental professionals were asked to assess the questionnaire for content validity. based on their feedback,a 20-item short-form version was prepared,including six demographic,six knowledge,four attitude and four practice items. the translated short-form questionnaire was subsequently distributed to 973 general dental practitioners attending a dental conference in tehran. internal consistency and reliability were assessed with cronbach’s alpha coefficient and item-total correlation calculations. results: a total of 13 professionals and 313 general dentists participated in the study (response rates: 86.7% and 32.2%,respectively). after the elimination of six items (two knowledge,two attitude and two practice items),the validity and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. conclusion: the final persian 14-item version of the questionnaire had acceptable validity and internal consistency. these results indicate that researchers can use this translated short-form version to evaluate oral cancer knowledge,attitudes and practices among persian-speaking dentists; this will allow for a comparison of data between different populations. © 2017,sultan qaboos university. all rights reserved.