The Home Situations Questionnaire-PDD version: factor structure and psychometric properties.

BACKGROUND: The Home Situations Questionnaire (HSQ) is a caregiver-rated scale designed to assess behavioural non-compliance in everyday settings that has been used in several studies in typically developing children. Currently there is no accepted measure of behavioural non-compliance in children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). METHODS: Investigators of the Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology Autism Network modified the HSQ for children with PDDs by adding five items (making 25 total items), and used it as the primary outcome measure in a clinical trial. In the current investigation, we examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the modified scale, the HSQ-PDD. RESULTS: An exploratory factor analysis with oblique rotations yielded two factors: 'Socially Inflexible' (14 items) and 'Demand-Specific' (six items). Item content of both factors appeared to fit well with the rubric of PDDs. Internal consistency, using Cronbach's alpha statistic, was 0.90 for 'Socially Inflexible', and 0.80 for 'Demand-Specific.' The obtained sub-scales and HSQ-PDD Total score showed moderate correlations with selected sub-scales of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory, and Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, and low correlations with the Vineland Adaptive Behavior sub-scales. CONCLUSIONS: The HSQ-PDD appears to be well suited for children with PDDs, although the Demand-Specific sub-scale may benefit from addition of more items. We provided sub-scale means and standard deviations for this relatively severe group of children with PDDs, and discussed the factor structure with respect to previous research.

Translation and linguistic validation of a disease-specific quality of life measure for cystic fibrosis.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a conceptually and semantically valid English version of a French disease-specific measure of quality of life for children, adolescents, and adults with cystic fibrosis (CF). METHODS: Following a backward and forward translation of the measure, 60 participants, including 20 children, 20 parents, and 20 adolescents/young adults completed the Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire (CFQ) and a series of cognitive probes evaluating their understanding of the items and response choices. RESULTS: Semantic and conceptual problems with the items were identified and modified for the second set of cognitive interviews. Response distributions across items and ages were adequate, and the predicted associations between disease severity and quality of life were obtained. CONCLUSIONS: The English version of the CFQ appears to be a linguistically valid measure of quality of life for patients with CF. A national validation study is now under way to test the psychometric properties of the measure.