Pediatric Functional Constipation Questionnaire-Parent Report (PedFCQuest-PR): development and validation.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric gastroenterology
• Health-related quality of life assessment
• Instrument development and validation

Background:

• Functional constipation is a common pediatric condition impacting children's quality of life.
• Existing tools may not adequately capture the nuances of functional constipation in the pediatric population.
• A disease-specific, parent-reported measure is needed for Brazilian Portuguese-speaking populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a disease-specific instrument, the Pediatric Functional Constipation Questionnaire-Parent Form (PedFCQuest-PR), in Brazilian Portuguese.
• To assess the health-related quality of life of children with functional constipation from the perspective of parents/caregivers.
• To provide a reliable and valid tool for clinical and research use.

Main Methods:

• Item generation and refinement through expert review and pilot testing.
• Validation using an observational, cross-sectional study of 87 parents/caregivers of children (5-15 years) with functional constipation (Rome IV Criteria).
• Simultaneous administration of PedFCQuest-PR and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL TM 4.0) for convergent and divergent validity assessment.

Main Results:

• The final PedFCQuest-PR consists of 26 questions across four domains, using a Likert scale.
• Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) for the Total Scale Score was 0.86.
• Convergent and divergent validity were demonstrated through correlations with the PedsQL TM 4.0.

Conclusions:

• The PedFCQuest-PR is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing health-related quality of life in children with functional constipation.
• The study provides strong evidence for the instrument's utility in clinical practice and future research.
• This validated tool will aid in better understanding and managing functional constipation in pediatric populations.