Validation of the Questionnaire "Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices" in populations of pregnant women exposed to pesticides.

The sample was convenience-based, not random, and drawn from just two health regions of one state. No unexposed women answered the work clothing, home practices and reasons-for-use items, so those parts of the questionnaire were never tested for their ability to tell the groups apart. The three questions used to check criterion validity were simple yes or no self-ratings, which the authors call a weak criterion, and they did not track with the scores. The questionnaire was administered by health professionals in interviews, which the authors say may have made some women embarrassed and changed their answers about home attitudes and practices. The exposed group had higher education than the unexposed group, so differences in scores may partly reflect education rather than exposure. The authors say the study did not reach all exposed pregnant women in the regions.

No funding source or author conflicts of interest are declared in the supplied text.

Do not treat this as proof that the questionnaire measures pesticide exposure risk. The check against self-rated adequacy found no association, and several domains could not be compared because no unexposed woman answered them. Expert agreement on wording is not the same as evidence that the scores mean what clinicians would assume.