Preliminary psycometric assessment of the Brazilian version of the DISABKIDS Atopic Dermatitis Module

OBJECTIVE: To assess preliminary psychometric properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version of a questionnaire for measuring health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with atopic dermatitis. METHODS: Cross-sectional study with a sample consisting of 52 children and adolescents aged 8 to 18 diagnosed with atopic dermatitis, and their parents or caregivers, selected at the dermatology department of a university hospital in the city of Sao Paulo, Southeast Brazil, in 2009. Construct validity, internal consistency and agreement between the responses of children and adolescents and their parents or caregivers were assessed in the Brazilian Portuguese version of the DISABKIDS ® -Atopic Dermatitis Module (ADM). RESULTS: Adequate internal consistency was found with Cronbach’s alpha coeffi cients of 0.7024/0.8124 and 0.7239/0.8604. The multitrait multimethod analysis for assessing convergent validity showed measures higher than 0.30 for all items. The analysis showed good discriminant validity. Agreement between child self-report and parent proxy-report was evaluated using intraclass correlation with measures impact and social stigma of disease of 0.8173 and 0.7629, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The study results showed that the DISABKIDS ® -ADM can be used by Brazilian researchers after its complete validation as it showed adequate preliminary psychometric properties and can be considered a valid, reliable instrument.