The Pediatric Asthma Control and Communication Instrument asthma questionnaire: For use in diverse children of all ages

Abstract

Background National Institutes of Health asthma guidelines recommend questionnaires to assess asthma control, but these questionnaires are not useable across the entire pediatric age spectrum and have not been validated among significant numbers of minority or Spanish-speaking children. Objective We sought to evaluate a questionnaire designed to assess asthma control across a broad age range of minority and Spanish-speaking children cared for in an outpatient setting. Methods Between July 1, 2007, and September 30, 2010, we collected information using the Pediatric Asthma Control and Communication Instrument (PACCI), the Asthma Control Test (ACT; or the childhood ACT for children 4–11 years old), the Pediatric Asthma Caregiver Quality of Life Questionnaire, and lung function and clinicians’ ratings of asthma status among a population of children presenting for routine asthma specialist care. The PACCI measure of asthma control was validated by evaluating accuracy, internal reliability, and concurrent, discriminative, and known-groups validity. Results We collected information on 265 English- and 52 Spanish-speaking children (mean age, 8.2 years; 58% male; 44% African American). Across all age groups and in both languages, PACCI control showed good internal reliability and strong concurrent, discriminative, and known-groups validity with ACT and Pediatric Asthma Caregiver Quality of Life Questionnaire scores and clinicians’ ratings of asthma control. The accuracy of the PACCI in classifying children with uncontrolled asthma was good (area under the curve, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.79–0.88). Conclusions The PACCI accurately measures asthma control in English- and Spanish-speaking children. The PACCI should be useful to clinicians to assess and classify asthma according to National Institutes of Health asthma guidelines.

Validation of Parental Reports of Asthma Trajectory, Burden, and Risk by Using the Pediatric Asthma Control and Communication Instrument

“…(11) It is written at a 5 th grade reading level, has been validated to measure asthma control among diverse, English- and Spanish-speaking patient populations and is intended to help clinicians better utilize patient/parent reported information to guide asthma treatment.…”

“…The PACCI has been previously validated as a measure of asthma control, (11) as has the adult version, the ACCI (12) .The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of three other PACCI domains unique from control: disease trajectory ( direction {e.g., asthma getting worse or better ), burden (bother) and risk domains (systemic use of steroids, emergency department visits, hospitalizations) in a diverse pediatric sample, including Black, Latino and Spanish-speaking children, across the age spectrum (0 – 21 years).…”

Responsiveness to Change in PROMIS® Measures among Children with Asthma: A Report from the PROMIS® Pediatric Asthma Study

“…Asthma control status was collected using the Asthma Control and Communication Instrument (ACCI) [25, 26] which is a 12-item questionnaire completed by the parent. The ACCI includes 5 items that assess asthma control; 3 items for asthma-related acute health care; 1 item for asthma symptoms; 1 item for medication adherence; 1 item for how much asthma bothers the participant; and 1 qualitative item that asks about patient and doctor communication.…”

“…The ACCI was administered each week and changes in control status were classified as ‘better’ (from poor to good control), the ‘same’ (no change), and ‘worse’ (from good to poor control). The ACCI has demonstrated good psychometric properties [26] and can discriminate poor versus good asthma control status in a diverse sample of children [25]. …”

Feasibility of Picture-Based Asthma Medication Plans in Urban Pediatric Outpatient Clinics

“…Patients presenting for an asthma consultation by pediatric pulmonologists were invited to provide information for a registry that was established to characterize asthma morbidity of patients in the pediatric pulmonary clinic and to collect clinical data to validate an asthma questionnaire. 17,18 A trained research assistant (RA) explained the study, screened interested parents/ patients for eligibility, and obtained informed consent from caregivers and assent from children older than 8 years of age. Interested parents were eligible for the current study if: (1) their child had doctor-diagnosed asthma, and (2) their child was 21 years of age or less.…”