This study aimed to bring for the Brazilian reality, through translation and validation, the Oral Health Assessment Tool, of Chalmers et al. (2005), which propose a tool for nursing professionals to evaluate the oral health conditions of institutionalized elderly people, followed by the definition of the daily care needs and the direction for accomplishment of specific dental procedures. The instrument, in English, was translated to the Portuguese language. The stages of reverse/back translation and analysis were followed by a committee of 10 experts invited to validate the instrument according to the semantic, idiomatic, cultural and conceptual equivalences. In the sequence, the instrument was submitted to the analysis by 21 nursing professionals of a long term care institution to manifest their opinions on content, presentation, reading/clarity and practical application of the instrument. It is presented to the nursing professionals a diagnostic and direction tool with relationship to the oral health of the elderly demands in long term care institutions.
Validation Studies; Health of Institutionalized Elderly; Oral Health
