Objective: The aim of this paper was to model the consequences of dental conditions from an empirical basis and to test the model's ability to predict response combinations.
Methods: The model was derived from responses to the short-form Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP14) obtained from a UK population sample of 5281 dentate adults. This model was then used to predict OHIP14 response combinations obtained from a sample of 3973 dentate and edentulous adults in Australia.
Findings: The empirically derived population-response model accounted for over 98% of response combinations of Australian dentate adults.
Conclusions: The empirically derived model followed a similar hierarchical pattern to the base model underlying the long-form version of the measure (thereby supporting the validity of the OHIP14 measure) and was strongly predictive of the pattern of responses obtained from Australian adults.