Article

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire
(CHAQ) is valid for the comparison of different age subgroups and for
longitudinal studies in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). METHODS: A CHAQ was
administered to 306 children with JIA. Rasch analyses were used to compare the
difficulty of each of the 30 items of the questionnaire for children of 2 age
groups (> or =10 years old and <10 years old). RESULTS: Independent of the
physical disability level assessed by the Rasch model, 8 of the 30 items (27%) of
the CHAQ were rated significantly different in the 2 age groups. Despite this
age-related variation in item difficulty, the impact on the CHAQ disability index
using its original scoring system remained low (about 0.25 points on a scale of 0-3). CONCLUSION: The difficulty of 8 of 30 items of the CHAQ depends on the
respondent's age. Nevertheless, the design of the CHAQ and its scoring system
remove most of the expected physical development bias.

Langue : ANGLAIS

Tiré à part : OUI