Current Pediatric Research

Introduction: Approximately, 3 million children are impacted by dizziness nationally, and are at high risk of intellectual and learning disability. Stark differences between children and adults in brain morphology, maturity, and perceptions of injury impact, valid, age-specific patient reported measures are important to capture the breadth of disability from dizziness post-concussion.

Objectives: To develop and examine content validity of the Pediatric Dizziness Index (PDI) to evaluate perceived disability due to dizziness.

Participants: Eight pediatric clinical and research experts participated in PDI development. PDI was developed in four steps: 1) Item development, 2) Item evaluation, 3) Content validity ratio and index calculation, and 4) Cognitive interviews to ensure face validity, and comprehension of the items. Content validation process followed the Consensus based Standards for the selection of health status Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidelines.

Main outcome measures: Content Validity Ratio (CVR) was calculated using Lawshe’s formula CVR=(ne–N/2)/N/2 (ne=number of experts identified an item as essential; N=total number of experts). Finally, Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated (CVI >0.8 indicated good content validity).

Results: Following the modified Delphi process, the initial item bank of 33 items was condensed to 10 items in final version of PDI. Three items were revised post cognitive testing. The final version of PDI demonstrated good content validity (CVI=0.87).

Conclusion: PDI is the first comprehensive patient reported measure specific to dizziness and provides evidence of strong content validity. Further research to establish factor structure and construct validity is recommended.

Author(s): Devashish Tiwari*, Mariah Allen, Rebecca Schulz, Brittany Gotts, Catherine Stewart, Maninderjit Kaur

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