Propriedades psicométricas da versão brasileira do child health questionnaire-parent form (CHQ-PF50) para crianças e adolescentes com doenças neurológicas crônicas incapacitantes

Abstract

The evaluation in Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) may be an important factor to understand the impact of chronic diseases in the life of an individual. Disabling chronic neurologic diseases (DCND), such as Down Syndrome (DS), Cerebral Palsy (CP), Autistic Disorder (AD) and Myelomeningocele (MM) present a considerable prevalence and bring harm to physical and mental health in the HRQL. The Child Health Questionnaire-Parent Form (CHQ-PF50) is one of the most used HRQL instruments in pediatrics, but the current Brazilian version wasn’t evaluated regarding psychometric properties. This study aimed to verify the psychometric properties of the CHQ-PF50 for children and adolescents with DCND. Representatives of children and adolescents with ages between 5 and 21 years with diagnosis of DCND (DS, CP, AD and MM) and healthy subjects answered to CHQ-PF50. The psychometric properties evaluated were: Proportion of lost data, ground and ceiling effect, internal consistency of the item, internal consistency reliability, discriminating validity of the item, discriminant and construct. The group with DCND was constituted of 169 participants and the healthy group had 160. The average age of the patients was 9.4 years (± 3,9) and in the healthy group was 10.4 years (± 3,4). The rate of lost data and the ground effect were lower than 10% and 20%, respectively, in all scales in both groups. Ceiling effect occurred in 11 scales of the DCND group and 12 scales in the healthy group. The reliability of the item internal consistency, discriminant validity and item discriminant validity were adequate. The construct validity was confirmed in most of the scales according to significant difference of scores between groups. Concluding, the psychometric properties evaluated were adequate as a whole. The presence of ceiling effect should be considered in the comparison between groups and in longitudinal studies. The scale health perception presented inadequate reliability and need to be revised.