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Instrument to screen cases of pervasive developmental disorder: a preliminary indication of validity
Fábio Pinato Sato1, Cristiane Silvestre Paula, Rosane Lowenthal
1Department of Psychiatry, Graduate Program, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. fpsato@uol.com.br
Objective:
To translate into Portuguese, back-translate, culturally adapt and validate a screening instrument for pervasive developmental disorder, the Autism Screening Questionnaire, for use in Brazil.
Method:
A sample of 120 patients was selected based on three groups of 40: patients with a clinical diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder, Down syndrome, or other psychiatric disorders. The self-administered questionnaire was applied to the patients' legal guardians. Psychometric measures of the final version of the translated questionnaire were tested.
Results:
The score of 15 had sensitivity of 92.5% and specificity of 95.5% as a cut-off point for the diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder. Internal validity for a total of 40 questions was 0.895 for alpha and 0.896 for KR-20, ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 for both coefficients. Test and retest reliability values showed strong agreement for most questions.
Conclusions:
The final version of this instrument, translated into Portuguese and adapted to the Brazilian culture, had satisfactory measurement properties, suggesting preliminary validation proprieties. It was an easy-to-apply, useful tool for the diagnostic screening of individuals with pervasive developmental disorder.
