Development and validation of a health related quality of life questionnaire for Brazilian children with epilepsy: preliminary findings

• Published in: Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria 2005-06, Vol.63 (2B), p.389-394
• Main Authors: Maia Filho, Heber de Souza, Gomes, Marleide da Mota, Fontenelle, Lucia Maria da Costa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Child; Child Welfare; Epilepsy; Female; Health Status; Humans; NEUROSCIENCES; PSYCHIATRY; Quality of Life; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 0004-282X; 1678-4227; 0004-282X
• DOI: 10.1590/s0004-282x2005000300004

To construct a multidimensional questionnaire that analyses the epileptic child quality of life from the parental point of view. The pilot questionnaire was composed of 157 questions distributed in several dimensions. Fifty-one epileptic children's parents answered the questionnaire. The instrument was tested in its diverse properties: frequency of endorsement, homogeneity (Cronbach alpha), criterion and face validity, and later it was reduced. Endorsement frequency excluded 65 questions that did not attain a minimum of 5% response per item. Cronbach alpha was as follows: physical (0.93), psychological (0.91), social (0.91), familiar (0.70), cognitive (0.92), medical (0.30) and economical (0.37). Patient groups, in relation to seizure control, significantly differed only in physical domain and total score, although there was a trend to differences in other domains. The final questionnaire (QVCE50) has 50 items, with good homogeneity in the physical, psychological and cognitive domains. QVCE-50 is a promissing Brazilian HRQL questionnaire for children with epilepsy. It needs to be applied in a larger population to confirm its psychometric properties.