Reliability and validity of a chinese version of the pediatric asthma symptoms scale.

As a construct, asthmatic severity provides a framework to understand the different reaction in children to their condition. Assessing asthmatic severity is a challenging task for most researchers and clinicians due to a lack of valid instruments to measure the severity of asthma of children in home settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Pediatric Asthma Symptoms Scale (C-PASS) as applied to an ethnic Chinese population in Taiwan. Firstly, five pediatric nurses holding masters' degrees assessed consistency between Chinese and English versions of the Pediatric Asthma Symptoms Scale. Secondly, internal consistent reliability, split-half reliability, content validity, criterion-related validity, and construct validity were established. An 8-item C-PASS was completed by mothers of 70 children (65.7% boys) of ages 8.35 years. Both the internal consistency and Guttman split-half reliability were .87. The content validity index (CVI) was over .80. The correlation coefficient between C-PASS and concurrent measures of the rating of lost control of life by mothers was .273 (p = .022). The criterion-related validity was supported for C-PASS. Factor analysis indicated that a scale of two dimensions accounted for 67.92% of the variance. A high inter-correlation was further identified between these two dimensions. Results showed C-PASS to be a reliable and valid instrument when used on Taiwanese children with asthma. It can serve as a valuable assessment tool in clinical practice to identify asthmatic severity levels for which intervention is advised.