Development and Validation of Psychological Adaptation Tool (PAT) for Children with Chronic Illness

Children with chronic illnesses experience many difficulties in adapting to their conditions. A review of the literature indicates a lack of instruments to measure this concept. Therefore, the aim of this study was development and validation of psychological adaptation tool (PAT) for children with chronic illness.

An exploratory mixed method design was used to develop and validate the PAT for children with chronic illness. The study was conducted in the paediatric OPD (outpatient department) and IPD (in patient department) at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, and Rajasthan. It took place in three phases (phase one: item development, phase two: tool development, phase three: tool evaluation) and a final tool of 16 items, classified into four domains was made. The method of convenient sampling was used to select 160 study participants. The reliability was tested using Cronbach's alpha. The construct validity of the tool was checked with exploratory factor analysis.

The results of study suggest that PAT is a valid and highly reliable tool. The content validity index was 0.96. The Cronbach's alpha value for the entire 16 items of PAT was 0.850 which was found to be good. The principal component analysis yielded 4 factors (Cognitive, conative, self-efficacy and coping strategies) with an eigenvalue of more than 1.00.

The result of this study has shown that PAT is a feasible highly reliable and valid tool.