Empowering parents of Australian infants and children in hospital: Translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the EMpowerment of PArents in The Intensive Care-30-AUS Questionnaire

Abstract

Objectives: To translate, culturally adapt, and psychometrically test the EMpowerment of PArents in The Intensive Care-30 questionnaire in Australian pediatric critical care, neonatal, and pediatric ward settings. Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive, multicenter study conducted in two phases; 1) translation and cultural adaptation and 2) validation of the EMpowerment of PArents in The Intensive Care-30 questionnaire. Settings: Two Western Australian sites, the PICU and two pediatric wards of a children's hospital and the neonatal unit of a women's and newborn hospital. Participants: Parents whose baby or child was admitted to the participating wards or units with a length of hospital stay greater than 24 hours. Intervention: None. Measurements and Main Results: Phase 1: A structured 10-step translation process adhered to international principles of good practice for translation and cultural adaptation of patient-reported outcomes. Thirty parents participated in cognitive debriefing. Phase 2: A total of 328 parents responded to the EMpowerment of PArents in The Intensive Care-30-AUS questionnaire. Reliability was sufficient (Cronbach á at domain level 0.70 -0.82, for each clinical area 0.56-0.86). Congruent validity was adequate between the domains and three general satisfaction items (rs 0.38-0.69). Nondifferential validity showed no significant effect size between three patient or parent demographic characteristics and the domains (Cohen's d < 0.36). Between the different clinical areas, significant differences in responses were found in all domains. Conclusions: The translated and culturally adapted EMpowerment of PArents in The Intensive Care-30-AUS is a reliable and valid questionnaire to measure parent-reported outc omes in pediatric critical care, pediatric ward, and neonatal hospital settings. Using this questionnaire can provide a framework for a standardized quality improvement approach and identification of best practices across specialties, hospital services and for benchmarking similar health services worldwide.