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

To develop a standardized, practical, self-administered questionnaire to monitor pediatric patients with burns and to evaluate the effectiveness of comprehensive pediatric burn management treatments, a group of experts generated a set of items to measure relevant burn outcomes. Children between die ages of 5 and 18 years were assessed in a cross-sectional study. Both parent 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 parents and from 0.75 to 0.92 among adolescents. Mean differences between parent and adolescent were small; the greatest difference occurred in the appearance subscale. Parental scales showed evidence of validity and potential for sensitivity to change. In an effort to support the construct validity of die new scales, they were compared with die Child Healtii Questionnaire and related to each otiier in clinically sensible ways. These burn outcomes scales reliably and validly assess function in patients with burns, and the scales have been developed in such a way that tfiey are likely to be sensitive to change over time. (J Burn Care Rehabil 2000;21:29-39).