TITLE:
Performance of commonly used respiratory questionnaire items in a cohort of infants born preterm
AUTHORS:
Elizabeth Boggs, Nori Minich, Anna Maria Hibbs
KEYWORDS:
Respiratory Questionnaire; Preterm; Wheeze
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.3 No.3,
August
27,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Background: Items from respiratory questionnaires
validated in older children are often used in research studies of preterm
infants, although they have not been validated in this population. We aimed to
assess both test-retest reliability and convergent validity of a group of
commonly used respiratory questionnaire items in a cohort of preterm infants. Methods: The health status of 300 preterm infants was assessed by telephone
questionnaire as part of a prospective cohort study. The questionnaire items
analyzed in this study included six commonly used respiratory questions. The
questionnaire responses used in this analysis were from the telephone follow-up
in this cohort at six months of age adjusted for prematurity. A repeat
interview one to two weeks after this interview was performed in a subset of subjects
to assess test-retest reliability. The convergent validity of the respiratory
items was also assessed by calculating the associations among the responses to
the respiratory questions. Results: A total of 43 infants were singletons
that met the criteria for test-retest reliability analysis. All of the
respiratory questions demonstrated fair to strong test-retest reliability.
Among 206 respondents, respiratory questionnaire items also demonstrated strong
convergent validity, in that caretakers reporting wheezing or whistling in the
chest were significantly more likely to also report other respiratory events. Conclusions: This selection of standard respiratory questionnaire items performed
well for research purposes in this population.