Dental Psychometrics and a Re(de)fined Model for Oral Health in Old Age: Past, Present and Future of Subjective Oral Health Measurement and Modelling

This book embraces the work I carried on for a Doctor of Philosophy in Dental Sciences degree at Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia. It presents a systematic synthesis of the existing dental psychometric measures for oral health-related quality of life in old age, and appraises the validity of such measures in the light of their content and relevance, for example. It also reports on the use of written vignettes to prompt discussion of sensitive health topics among older adults gathered in focus groups. The groups were encouraged to evaluate and refine an existing model of oral health from their perspectives. As per the qualitative work, I pose my ideas around phenomenology, grounded theory and framework analysis. I conclude this book by discussing the implications and future directions of my work.