CROSS-CULTURAL RELIABILITY OF THE CHILDHOOD HEALTH ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

Objective. To translate into Portuguese the Childhood Health Assessmen t Questionnaire and to evaluate the reliability of the Portuguese vers ion. Methods. The original questionnaire was translated into Portugues e, without modifications, and it was administered to 53 children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and their parents. The reproducibility a nd construct validity were studied. Results. We observed satisfactory Spearman's correlation coefficients among the instrument's score, a pa in scare (visual analog scale) and conventional clinical variables com monly used by the pediatric rheumatologists: disease activity index, n umber of involved joints, American College of Rheumatology functional class, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. The test-retest reliability was established. Conclusion. Our results provide evidence of the reli ability of the Portuguese version of the Childhood Health Assessment Q uestionnaire.