Validating the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module for Fijian schools to identify seeing, hearing and walking difficulties

AbstractPurpose: This study investigated the seeing, hearing and walking questions of the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module and the inter-rater reliability between teachers and parents as proxy respondents.Methods: Cross-sectional diagnostic accuracy study, two-gate design with representative sampling, comparing Module responses to reference standard assessments for 472 primary aged students in Fiji. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to determine the area under the curve and optimal cut-off points.Results: Areas under the curves ranged from 0.823 to 0.889 indicating “good” diagnostic accuracy. Inter-rater reliability between parent and teacher responses was “good” to “excellent”. The optimal cut-off determined by the Youden Index was “some difficulty” however a wide spread of impairment levels were found in this category with most children either having none or substantial impairments.Conclusions: The diagnostic accuracy of the Module seeing, hearing and walking ques...