Oral health in childhood: construction and validation of an instrument on knowledge, attitude, and practice of caregivers

The objective of this article is to develop and validate a KAP (knowledge, attitude, and practice) instrument for caregivers of children up to 36 months of age monitored by the Family Health Strategy. This methodological study was conducted in three stages: an integrative review, preparation of the initial version, and content validation by 29 judges. The instrument was validated for content and appearance. The Content Validity Index (CVI) and the FINN and Gwe-AC1 coefficients were calculated to assess inter-judge agreement. The overall CVI values of the 39-item instrument were: Clarity (0.91) and Relevance (0.95). The final version was obtained through 19 knowledge, 10 attitude, and 10 practice questions on caries, diet, oral hygiene, fluoride, breastfeeding, artificial feeding, milk teeth, and the need to take the baby to the dentist. The instrument produced can be used because it has the potential for use depending on the more global assessment of its psychometric properties.