Introduction: Cariogenic food intake and oral health knowledge, attitude and
practices (KAP) of parents are contributing factors that influence the oral health
status of children. As there is lack of a validated questionnaire in Bahasa Melayu
(the Malay language) to measure the factors, this cross-sectional study was
carried out to establish a linguistically valid and reliable cariogenic food frequency
questionnaire (M-CFFQ) and oral health kap questionnaire (M-OHKAPQ) in Bahasa
Melayu, for parents of children aged 6-11 years in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Methods:
Relevant questionnaires in English were selected and translated to Malay language.
This process included forward translation, synthesis, backward translation and
consolidation to produce the preliminary drafts of M-CFFQ and M-OHKAPQ. Pretesting
was conducted on ten parents of children from a primary school in Kota
Bharu by face-to-face interview. The findings were reviewed to produce the final
versions of M-CFFQ and M-OHKAPQ. A test-retest reliability study was undertaken
involving 49 parents. The participants were asked to answer the final M-CFFQ and
M-OHKAPQ versions twice, within a 7-14 days interval. Data collected were entered
into IBM SPPS version 22 software and analysed using the Intraclass Correlation
Coefficient (ICC) test. Results: Semantic, idiomatic, experiential, conceptual as well
as content and face validity issues were successfully resolved. Fifteen categories
of food/drinks for M-CFFQ and 26 items/questions M-OHKAPQ were produced.
The total ICC values achieved for M-CFFQ and M-OHKAPQ were 0.887 and 0.807,
respectively. Conclusion: The M-CFFQ and M-OHKAPQ appeared to be linguistically
valid and reliable with excellent test-retest reliability (ICC>0.80).