Hindi Translation and Validation of Childhood Asthma Control Test (C-ACT)

Objective: Hindi translation and validation of the Childhood Asthma Control Test (C-ACT). Methods: Children aged 5-11 years with newly diagnosed asthma were enrolled and followed every 4-weeks for 12 weeks. Asthma control was assessed with C-ACT and Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) criteria. Results: 60 children (34 boys, 56%) were enrolled. C-ACT showed a statistically significant correlation with GINA criteria at all visits. Cronbach’s alpha to assess the internal consistency was 0.74, and the intraclass correlation coefficient to measure test-retest reliability was 0.83. The maximum area under the curve (AUC) for C-ACT was 0.95 (95% CI: 0.89-1.0; P<0.001). At a cutoff score of ?20, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of C-ACT were 97.9%, 25%, 88.7%, and 87.5%, respectively. Conclusions: Hindi version of the CACT score is valid, reliable, and correlates well with the GINA criteria for asthma control in children. It has a high sensitivity at a cutoff score of ?20, but the specificity was poor in differentiating asthma control.

Beware – statistics may deceive you.

Statistics is a tool by which a researcher analyzes the data in his research. Sometimes statistics tend to be manipulated to get desired results. This article explains some methods researchers use to get results they desire, why these methods are incorrect and how they can be taken care of. Readers should be aware of these tricks and watch out for such instances of manipulation when analyzing a research paper.