A digital playful bladder and bowel diary for children: Development and content validation

Area of Science:

• Pediatric urology
• Digital health tools
• Child health assessment

Background:

• Bladder and bowel dysfunction (BBD) is common in children and necessitates structured assessment.
• Current voiding diaries lack child-centered, digital, and playful formats for integrated bladder and bowel data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a digital, playful bladder and bowel diary for children.
• To validate the content of this diary using expert review.
• To conduct an initial assessment of the diary's interface comprehension in children.

Main Methods:

• A two-phase methodological study was performed.
• Phase 1: Expert content validation using the Item-level Content Validity Index (I-CVI) with 15 specialists.
• Phase 2: Interface comprehension assessment with 13 children (aged 6-11) using a digital prototype.

Main Results:

• The diary achieved an initial overall I-CVI of 0.97, with revisions leading to all items meeting the minimum threshold.
• The final validated diary contains 61 items.
• Interface comprehension was high, with over 90% of fields understood by children, though two catheterization fields required improvement.

Conclusions:

• A digitally structured bladder and bowel diary with established content validity has been developed.
• Initial evidence suggests good interface comprehension among child users.
• This represents a foundational step towards a child-centered digital tool for tracking elimination habits.