Assessment of the quality of measures of child oral health-related quality of life

Background Several measures of oral health-related quality of life have been developed for children. The most frequently used are the Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ), the Child Oral Impacts on Daily Performances (C-OIDP) and the Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP). The aim of this study was to assess the methodological quality of the development and testing of these three measures. Methods A systematic search strategy was used to identify eligible studies published up to December 2012, using both MEDLINE and Web of Science. Titles and abstracts were read independently by two investigators and full papers retrieved where the inclusion criteria were met. Data were extracted by two teams of two investigators using a piloted protocol. The data were used to describe the development of the measures and their use against existing criteria. The methodological quality and measurement properties of the measures were assessed using standards proposed by the Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) group. Results The search strategy yielded 653 papers, of which 417 were duplicates. Following analysis of the abstracts, 119 papers met the inclusion criteria. The majority of papers reported cross-sectional studies (n = 117) with three of longitudinal design. Fifteen studies which had used the original version of the measures in their original language were included in the COSMIN analysis. The most frequently used measure was the CPQ. Reliability and construct validity appear to be adequate for all three measures. Children were not fully involved in item generation which may compromise their content validity. Internal consistency was measured using classic test theory with no evidence of modern psychometric techniques being used to test unidimensionality of the measures included in the COSMIN analysis. Conclusion The three measures evaluated appear to be able to discriminate between groups. CPQ has been most widely tested and several versions are available. COHIP employed a rigorous development strategy but has been tested in fewer populations. C-OIDP is shorter and has been used successfully in epidemiological studies. Further testing using modern psychometric techniques such as item response theory is recommended. Future developments should also focus on the development of measures which can evaluate longitudinal change

Young Australian consumers and the country-of-origin effect: investigation of the moderating roles of product involvement and perceived product-origin congruency

The effect that consumers’ country-related images have on their purchase decisions is known as the country-of-origin effect. Marketing researchers have thoroughly investigated COO effects in a range of contexts since the mid-1960s. However, since the 1980s it has been thought (e.g., Levitt, 1983; Ohmae, 1995) that consumer needs and wants are converging and that nation states are artificial and superficial entities of little value as quality indicators. The argument is that since the world is changing and because young consumers are used to seeing products from a variety of countries they do not have the country biases that the COO effect stipulates. Indeed, a recent study (Wong et al., 2008) on young Chinese consumers and the COO effect seems to confirm that young consumers no longer are influenced by the COO effect. The aim of this research is to investigate if and how the relationship between young Australian consumers’ product-country image and their product evaluations is influenced by two contextual variables: their product involvement and their perceived product-origin congruency. The research reports the results and relevant implications for research and practice