Development and psychometric evaluation of the asthma Action plan questionnaire (AAPQ)

Objective: To develop a practical and psychometrically sound tool to evaluate caregiver knowledge of their child’s asthma action plan (AAP). Methods: A pilot study was conducted in a sample of 40 caregivers of children with asthma to assess the content validity, item difficulty, and item discrimination of the Asthma Action Plan Questionnaire (AAPQ). The inter-rater and intra-rater agreement of the AAPQ’s scoring rubric were also examined. Subsequently, a large-scale study was conducted in a sample of 80 caregivers of children with asthma and 40 caregivers of children without current asthma and no prior exposure to patients with asthma to evaluate the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and known-groups validity of the AAPQ. Results: The 7-item AAPQ demonstrated acceptable content validity (a scale-content validity index of 0.98) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha =.63 and mean inter-item correlation coefficient of.20) and very strong test-retest reliability over a two-to-four-week period (r =.88, p <.001). The AAPQ discriminated between caregivers of children with asthma and caregivers of children without asthma (M ± SD 8.3 ± 1.6 vs. 4.3 ± 1.7, p <.001, respectively). Conclusion: The AAPQ is a valid and reliable questionnaire that provides an assessment of caregivers’ knowledge of their child’s AAP and can guide educational interventions by healthcare providers.