PLoS ONE (Jan 2015)

Psychometric properties of the Autoquestionnaire Qualité de Vie Enfant Imagé (AUQEI) applied to children with cerebral palsy.

  • Wener Barbosa-Resende,
  • Viviane de Oliveira Rangel,
  • Ana Claudia Frontarolli,
  • Renata R Hoffman Araújo,
  • Carlos Henrique Martins da Silva,
  • Rogério de Melo Costa Pinto,
  • Nívea de Macedo Oliveira Morales

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115643
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 2
p. e0115643

Abstract

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BACKGROUND:Quality of life (QL) assessments of children with incapacitating diseases, such as cerebral palsy (CP), have often been conducted with the help of the representatives of a child, making QL assessment more subjective. The Autoquestionnaire Qualité de Vie Enfant Imagé (AUQEI) is a QL assessment designed for children to self-report-it uses images to facilitate the reporting process. OBJECTIVE:evaluate the psychometric properties of AUQEI when responses are given by children with CP. FINDINGS:Children aged 4 to 12 years (45 with CP and 45 healthy children) gave responses to the questionnaire. The data quality, reliability and validity were assessed. The data loss rate ranged from 8.8% to 46.7%, and was highest for the "autonomy" factor. No floor or ceiling effect was detected. The success rate for reliability of the internal consistency of the items was less than 80% for the "autonomy" factor. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.71 for the instrument and less than 0.5 for the factors. All the factors had a success rate of greater than 80% for the discriminating validity of the items. The factors did not have correlations between each other, thus indicating adequate discriminating validity. Convergent validity was tested and a significant correlation was demonstrated only between the AUQEI "functioning" factor and the Child Health Questionnaire--50-Item (CHQ-PF50) physical summary score (r = 0.31, p = 0.042). The AUQEI scores did not have correlations with the gross motor function scores (p>0.05) as expected for divergent validity. Regarding construct validity, the total AUQEI score obtained by the CP group was lower (median: 47.3) than that of the healthy group (median: 51.0) (p<0.01). CONCLUSION:The AUQEI was shown to be a reliable and valid instrument for assessing children with CP when the total score was used. Convergent validity should continue to be tested in future studies.