Development of questionnaire on dentists’ knowledge of HIV/AIDS

ABSTRACT

Aim: This study aimed to construct and evaluate the cross-cultural adaptation of DK-HIV-Q in an Argentine Spanish version. Methods: A translation and back translation of the DK-HIV-Q questionnaire were completed, as the original questionnaire had been formulated in Portuguese by a Brazilian researcher. The DKHIV-Q was tested in two pilot studies conducted with Argentine dentists. Results: The committee of experts, consisting of three bilingual dentists, an epidemiology dentist, a general clinical dentist, and an oral pathology specialist, fully agreed on the conceptual relevance of the general domain and the 4-domain structure for the DK-HIV-Q, such as the declarative knowledge of the transmission of HIV/AIDS, the declarative knowledge of oral manifestations of HIV/AIDS, the procedural knowledge of proper dental practice, and the proceduralknowledge of infection control measures. A final version of the DK-HIV-Q showed a satisfactory degreeof semantic accuracy and semantic equivalence with the original version, and proved to be satisfactorilyconceptual and useful as an initial indicator for a subsequent study of construct validity. Conclusion: Thisstudy described the specific details of the construction of the DK-HIV-Q and aspects of the content validity process, which is one of the main procedures to be considered by healthcare researchers and professionals who are interested in using reliable and appropriate measurements and instrument scales for given populationgroups, such as HIV/AIDS patients.