American burn association/shriners hospitals for children burn outcomes questionnaire: Construction and psychometric properties

To develop a standardized, practical, self-administered questionnaire to mo nitor pediatric patients with burns and to evaluate the effectiveness of co mprehensive pediatric burn management treatments, a group of experts genera ted a set of items to measure relevant burn outcomes. Children between the ages of 5 and 18 pears were assessed in a cross-sectional study. Both paren t and adolescent responses were obtained from children 11 to 18 years old. The internal reliability of final scales ranged from 0.82 to 0.93 among par ents and from 0.75 to 0.92 among adolescents. Mean differences between pare nt and adolescent were small; the greatest difference occurred in the appea rance subscale. Parental scales showed evidence of validity and potential f or sensitivity to change. In an effort to support the construct validity of the new scales, they were compared with the Child Health Questionnaire and related to each other in clinically sensible ways. These burn outcomes sca les reliably and validly assess function in patients with burns, and the sc ales have been developed in such a way that they are likely to be sensitive to change over time.