Children's Acute Cough-Specific Quality of Life: Revalidation and Development of a Short Form.

PURPOSE: Acute cough in children has a significant impact on the child and family. Relevant quality of life (QoL) instruments are essential for high-quality clinical research. This study aimed to (1) revalidate the 16-item Parent-proxy Children's Acute Cough-specific QoL questionnaire (PAC-QoL16) using a different dataset (i.e., different children), (2) confirm the minimally important difference (MID), and (3) develop and validate a short form. METHODS: Three datasets from two sources were utilized, comprising of 332 children with acute cough (< 2 weeks duration); the first dataset (n = 83, 54 boys; median age 2.04 years, IQR 1.08-4.06 years) was used for revalidation, the second dataset (n = 238, 141 boys; median age 2.17 years, IQR 1.21-4.21 years) was used to develop the short form, and the third dataset (n = 94, 62 boys; median age, 1.75 years, IQR 0.90-3.63 years) was used to confirm the short form. Psychometric properties were investigated. RESULTS: Six items were found to account for 96.4% of the variance in the PAC-QoL16. The PAC-QoL16 and short form (PAC-QoL6) scales correlated with cough scores (rs ≤ - 0.40, p < 0.001), were internally consistent (Cronbach α = 0.94 and 0.87, respectively) and demonstrated sensitivity to change over time. A MID of 0.71 to 1.11 is recommended. CONCLUSION: Both the PAC-QoL16 and newly developed short form (PAC-QoL6) are reliable and valid outcome measures that assess children's acute cough-specific QoL at a given time point, are easy to interpret and reflect changes over time. The new short form addresses the need for outcome measures to be as time effective as possible without loss of information.

An acute cough-specific quality-of-life questionnaire for children: Development and validation.

BACKGROUND: Patient-relevant outcome measures are essential for high-quality clinical research, and quality-of-life (QoL) tools are the current standard. Currently, there is no validated children's acute cough-specific QoL questionnaire. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to develop and validate the Parent-proxy Children's Acute Cough-specific QoL Questionnaire (PAC-QoL). METHODS: Using focus groups, a 48-item PAC-QoL questionnaire was developed and later reduced to 16 items by using the clinical impact method. Parents of children with a current acute cough (<2 weeks) at enrollment completed 2 validated cough score measures, the preliminary 48-item PAC-QoL, and 3 other questionnaires (the State Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI], the Short-Form 8-item 24-hour recall Health Survey [SF-8], and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress 21-item Scale [DASS21]). All measures were repeated on days 3 and 14. RESULTS: The median age of the 155 children enrolled was 2.3 years (interquartile range, 1.3-4.6). Median cough duration at enrollment was 3 days (interquartile range, 2-5). The reduced 16-item scale had high internal consistency (Cronbach α = 0.95). Evidence for repeatability and criterion validity was shown by significant correlations between the domains and total PAC-QoL scores and the SF-8 (r = -0.36 and -0.51), STAI (r = -0.27 and -0.39), and DASS21 (r = -0.32 and -0.41) scales on days 0 and 3, respectively. The final PAC-QoL questionnaire was sensitive to change over time, with changes significantly relating to changes in cough score measures (P < .001). CONCLUSION: The 16-item PAC-QoL is a reliable and valid outcome measure that assesses QoL related to childhood acute cough at a given time point and reflects changes in acute cough-specific QoL over time.

A cross-sectional analysis of patterns of obesity in a cohort of working nurses and midwives in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of overweight and obesity and the association with demographic, reproductive work variables in a representative cohort of working nurses and midwives. DESIGN: A cross sectional study of self reported survey data. SETTINGS: Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. METHODS: Measurement outcomes included BMI categories, demographic (age, gender, marital status, ethnicity), reproductive (parity, number of births, mother's age at first birth, birth type and menopausal status) and workforce (registration council, employment type and principal specialty) variables. PARTICIPANTS: 4996 respondents to the Nurses and Midwives e-Cohort study who were currently registered and working in nursing or midwifery in Australia (n=3144), New Zealand (n=778) or the United Kingdom (n=1074). RESULTS: Amongst the sample 61.87% were outside the healthy weight range and across all three jurisdictions the prevalence of obesity in nurses and midwives exceeded rates in the source populations by 1.73% up to 3.74%. Being overweight or obese was significantly associated with increasing age (35-44 yrs aOR 1.71, 95% CI 1.41-2.08; 45-55 yrs aOR 1.90, 95%CI 1.56-2.31; 55-64 aOR 2.22, 95% CI 1.71-2.88), and male gender (aOR 1.46, 95% CI 1.15-1.87). Primiparous nurses and midwives were more likely to be overweight or obese (aOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.06-1.76) as were those who had reached menopause (aOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.11-1.69). Nurses and midwives in part-time or casual employment had significantly reduced risk of being overweight or obese, (aOR 0.81, 95% CI 0.70-0.94 and aOR 0.75, 95% CI 0.59-0.96 respectively), whilst working in aged carried increased risk (aOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.04-1.80). CONCLUSION: Nurses and midwives in this study have higher prevalence of obesity and overweight than the general population and those who are older, male, or female primiparous and menopausal have significantly higher risk of overweight or obesity as do those working fulltime, or in aged care. The consequences of overweight and obesity in this occupational group may impact on their workforce participation, their management of overweight and obese patients in their care as well as influencing their individual health behaviours and risks of occupational injury and chronic disease.