Short-form versions of the Parental-Caregivers Perceptions Questionnaire and the Family Impact Scale

To develop short-form versions of the Parental-Caregivers Perceptions Questionnaire (P-CPQ) and Family Impact Scale (FIS).

Pretest/post-test clinical studies involved parent-completed questionnaires (the P-CPQ and the FIS) before and some weeks after dental care (under general anaesthesia) for early childhood caries (ECCs) in consecutive clinical samples from Wellington and Auckland. Deriving the short-form versions used only the baseline data from the Wellington sample (N = 195), whereas their evaluation used both baseline and follow-up data from the Auckland sample (N = 144 followed up). Item impact analysis was used to identify the 8 and 16 items with the greatest impact. An eight-item short-form FIS version was obtained in the same way.

In the Wellington sample, Cronbach's α for the full, 16- and 8-item P-CPQ scales was 0.92, 0.89 and 0.82, respectively, and it was 0.88 and 0.85 for the full and eight-item FIS. Cross-sectional concurrent validity in the Wellington sample was acceptable for all short forms. Examining their responsiveness in the Auckland sample, large decreases post-treatment were observed in the short-form P-CPQ scores which were similar in relative magnitude to those seen with the full version. The full and short-form FIS scale scores showed moderate decreases.

The reliability, validity and responsiveness of the short-form versions were acceptable in these settings with children suffering from severe ECC; however, before they can be treated as definitive measures for use in health services research to determine the effects of clinical interventions for ECC, their test-retest reliability should be examined and further validation undertaken.