Abstract
BackgroundAlthough there is a considerably high prevalence of developmental disorders in Turkey there are not many assessment tools related to evaluating the impact of these children on their family. The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Impact on Family Scale (IPFAM), a health related quality of life measurement to be utilized in clinical trials, health care services, research and evaluation.MethodsCaregivers of 85 children with developmental disabilities answered the questionnaire and 65 of them answered it twice with a one week interval. The reliability of the measurement was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for test-retest reliability. Construct validity was assessed by calculating the correlation between total impact score of IPFAM, WeeFIM and the physiotherapists' evaluation via Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to determine the child's disability.ResultsTest-retest reliability was found to be ICC = 0.953 for total impact, 0.843 for financial support, 0.940 for general impact, 0.871 for disruption of social relations and 0.787 for coping. Internal consistency was tested using Cronbach's alpha and was found to be 0.902 for total impact of IPFAM. For construct validity the correlation between total impact score of IPFAM and WeeFIM was r = -0,532 (p < 0.001) and the correlation between total impact score of IPFAM and the physiotherapist's evaluation was r = 0.519 (p < 0.001).ConclusionThe Turkish version of IPFAM was found to be a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the impact of developmental disorders of the child on the family.
Highlights
There is a considerably high prevalence of developmental disorders in Turkey there are not many assessment tools related to evaluating the impact of these children on their family
Procedure This study is divided into two phases: Phase I, the crosscultural adaptation, which involves the translation procedures and preliminary probe in the target population; and phase II, which involves the reliability and validation
According to the Wilcoxon signed rank test, there was no difference between test and retest values of the total impact, financial support, general impact, disruption of social relations and coping (p < 0.05)
Summary
There is a considerably high prevalence of developmental disorders in Turkey there are not many assessment tools related to evaluating the impact of these children on their family. The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Impact on Family Scale (IPFAM), a health related quality of life measurement to be utilized in clinical trials, health care services, research and evaluation. Within the cost conscious healthcare system, healthrelated quality of life measurement has become an important health outcome. This is most obvious in current multi-centered studies [1]. While assessing the quality of life amongst the disabled, the burden carried by their caregivers is usually not given adequate consideration. This is true for the families of impaired children. The process of family adaptation to the presence of an ill member has been explored in the medical and sociological literature [2,3]
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