THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR IDENTIFYING CHILDREN WITH CHRONIC CONDITIONS - A MEASURE BASED ON A NONCATEGORICAL APPROACH

Objective. To report on the development of the Questionnaire for Ident ifying Children with Chronic Conditions (QuICCC). This new instrument identifies children and adolescents who have chronic health conditions based on the noncategorical conceptual framework outlined in our earl ier work. It uses the consequences of conditions as a method for ident ifying children with chronic health conditions and is completely indep endent of diagnosis. Method. Through a combination of techniques, we d eveloped and piloted items and created 39 brief question sequences tha t were designed to be administered to a parent or guardian of children <18 years of age. The prototype was field tested extensively and refi ned using data from local hospital-based samples representing 318 hous eholds and 666 children. The instrument was then administered to two l arge representative samples (local: 657 households, 1275 children; nat ional: 712 households, 1388 children) to establish validity and reliab ility. Results. Content, convergent, construct, and criterion validity each have been demonstrated. The QuICCC has good test-retest reliabil ity. Parents find the questions easy to answer. It took 7 to 8 minutes on average to obtain information about all the children in a family. The QuICCC successfully identified children with a wide range of diffe rent conditions that are usually considered chronic, and excluded thos e with acute illnesses and those with conditions but no current conseq uences. Conclusions. The Questionnaire for Identifying Children with C hronic Conditions is a practical instrument that can be used for epide miological purposes. It offers considerable flexibility and has many p otential applications in health care delivery research.