CROSS-CULTURAL RELIABILITY OF THE CHILDHOOD HEALTH ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

Objective. To translate into Portuguese the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire and to evaluate the reliability of the Portuguese version. Methods. The original questionnaire was translated into Portuguese, without modifications, and it was administered to 53 children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and their parents. The reproducibility and construct validity were studied. Results. We observed satisfactory Spearman's correlation coefficients among the instrument's score, a pain scare (visual analog scale) and conventional clinical variables commonly used by the pediatric rheumatologists: disease activity index, number of involved joints, American College of Rheumatology functional class, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. The test-retest reliability was established. Conclusion. Our results provide evidence of the reliability of the Portuguese version of the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire.