Objective: To investigate if there is convergent validity between the dimensions of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Brief Version (WHOQOL-Bref) and the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) questionnaire.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a random sample of 872 elderly Southern-Brazilians was evaluated. Questionnaires assessing socio-demographic data and quality of life in general (WHOQOL-Bref) and oral health-related quality of life (OHIP-14) were used. Analysis of the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 questionnaires used descriptive statistics. The dimensions of the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 questionnaires were correlated by affinity. The convergence between WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 dimensions was analyzed by Spearman's correlation coefficients.
Results: The social relations dimension of the WHOQOL-Bref presented the greatest mean (18.24 ± 2.30). The physical pain dimension of the OHIP-14 presented a median of 1.0 (0.0 - 3.0). All correlations between the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 dimensions were significant, negative and associated with a low magnitude. The correlation between WHOQOL-physical and OHIP-functional limitation, OHIP-physical pain, OHIP-physical disability and OHIP-handicap were - 0.164, - 0.262, - 0.196 and - 0.125 respectively. WHOQOL-psychological was associated with OHIP-psychological discomfort and OHIP-psychological disability, and WHOQOL-social showed an association with OHIP-social disability.
Conclusions: All correlations analyzed had a positive association of low magnitude. Despite the fact that the WHOQOL-Bref and OHIP-14 instruments have related dimensions, they measure physical, psychological and social relations differently.