Functional performance assessment scale for children and adolescents with cancer: cross-cultural study.
Sandra Alves do Carmo, Isabel Cristina Dos Santos Oliveira, Soraya Bactuli Cardoso and 5 others
PMID 38896710WHAT IT FOUND
A Brazilian Portuguese scale for rating play and activity in hospitalized children with cancer was accepted by experts and nurses, and nurses took about five minutes to use it.
Screen-based play made observation difficult.
Key findings
01After translation and expert review, the adapted scale showed satisfactory equivalence scores: semantic 97.2, idiomatic 94.4, cultural 94.4, and conceptual 97.2, with judge reliability 0.908.
02Fifteen pediatric nurses rated the scale's clarity, coherence, and relevance as satisfactory, above the required agreement level of 0.8, with rater reliability 0.885.
03In a pretest involving four nurses and thirty children and adolescents, nurses took an average of five minutes to apply the scale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a translation and validation process, not a test of whether using the scale improves patient outcomes or treatment decisions. The pretest was small: four nurses and thirty children and adolescents, and the earlier pilot used only eight children and adolescents. The main researcher did not take part in data collection, which limited further psychometric testing. The scale has not been cross-culturally adapted in another country, so comparison with international versions is limited. Hospitalized children were often engaged in passive screen activities, and SARS-CoV-2 movement restrictions reduced play, which may have made scores harder to interpret. The study did not complete broader psychometric testing, and the authors call for further studies in a consistent sample. Data were collected in a single oncology institute in Rio de Janeiro, so it may not apply to all settings.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict-of-interest declaration is provided in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat this scale as proven to improve care or predict outcomes. It was translated and checked for agreement among experts and nurses, then used in a small pretest of 30 children and adolescents; no patient outcome was tested, and further psychometric studies are needed.