THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A MEASURE OF PARENT-REPORTED CHILD HEALTH AND MORBIDITY - THE WARWICK CHILD HEALTH AND MORBIDITY PROFILE

Objective: to validate a simple instrument for the measurement of pare nt-reported health and morbidity in infancy and childhood suitable for research and service planning purposes and capable of measuring both cross-sectional and longitudinal health and morbidity experience in a child population. Setting: child health clinic (CHC), child developmen t unit (CDU) and paediatric outpatient department (OPD) in Coventry. D esign: 3-phase field testing to establish test-retest reliability, val idity and inter-observer variation of the instrument. Field testing sa mples: phases 1 and 2; 188 parents of pre-school children attending on e of the three health service settings -CHC, CDU or paediatric OPD; ph ase 3; 40 parents of preschool children attending CHCs. Methods: test- retest reliability of each domain of the WCHMP was estimated using wei ghted Kappa; criterion validity was estimated for selected domains aga inst health records; construct validity against medically plausible co nstructs was tested by comparing responses between domains; inter-obse rver variation was estimated using weighted Kappa. Results: the test-r etest reliability of the WCHMP varied from 'moderate' for behaviour, f unctional health and life quality status to 'very good' for acute sign ificant illness and hospital admission status; criterion and construct validity were high; weighted Kappas for all domains for inter-observe variation between the researcher and family health visitor were in th e 'good' to 'very good' range and inter-observer variation remained un affected by change in the order of administration of the WCHMP. Conclu sions: the WCHMP is a simple measure of parent-reported health and ill ness which, on field-testing, has been shown to be reliable and valid with low inter-observer variation. After further development and valid ation including incorporation into the parent-held record, it should b e suitable for use in infancy and early childhood to collect cross-sec tional and longitudinal health and morbidity data for research and ser vice planning purposes.