Evaluation of the Parental Perspective instrument for pediatric cochlear implantation to arrive at a short version

Evaluation of the well-known and widely used Parental Perspectives questionnaire (PP) by means of statistical analysis and exploring the possibility to develop a short version, as the instrument is often regarded as being rather lengthy with 74 questions.

One hundred and thirty parents of children participated in this study. To assess internal consistency among the PP items of the domains, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated. Corrected item-total correlations were carried out to investigate the strength of individual items' associations with the construct. Factor analysis was performed to identify the statistical factors of the original PP and in exploring a revised short form PP.

Instead of the expected 8-factor structure (eight suggested domains), factor analyses found a 15-factor structure. Nevertheless, when the proposed eight domain structure is followed, some items can be disposed of, based upon the Cronbach's alpha analyses and consistent reasoning. After reducing the number of factors based on standard criteria, a three-domain structure was shown as main concept. The cumulative variance explained by this new model was 39.4% and the final number of items in this probable revised version is 23. Reliability analyses of the new domains of the proposed short version PP (sPP) showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.79). The corrected item-total correlations represent strong individual items' associations with the construct as R items-total varies between 0.34 and 0.64.

The Parental Perspectives instrument (PP) is an important tool to assess the impact of cochlear implantation of a child for the quality of life for the family and the child itself. This statistical investigation showed a possible option for development of a short form usable in prospective follow-up studies.