Validação do questionário escrito ISAAC módulo eczema atópico para inquérito telefônico

Abstract

Atopic eczema (AE) is a chronic inflammatory cutaneous disease, frequent in childhood. Its accurate prevalence is unknown in many countries. The aim of this study was to assess the validity and reproducibility of the ISAAC written questionnaire (IEWQ) for 6-7-year-old children administered through telephone interviews. It is an observational study that recruited parents/caregivers of one hundred patients aged 6-7-year-old (with and without AE) to answer biweekly interviews using IEWQ in three different occasions: the first and the third contacts through telephone interviews, and the second contact in person. Reproducibility and concordance correlation coefficient were assessed using kappa (κ) coefficient. Construct validity used sensitivity, specificity and accuracy coefficients. Between August 2019 and January 2020, data from 88 children were analyzed: 36.4% from the AE group and 59.1% were of the male gender. Mothers were the main respondents in both groups. The reproducibility data showed almost perfect agreement for the “Itch in typical sites” (k=0.812) indicator; while substantial agreement was observed for all the other indicators (k range, 0.660-0.809). The results of construct validity showed that all questions presented high specificity (≥ 80.4%) and sensitivity (≥ 87.5 %), except sensitivity referring to chronicity and medical diagnosis (34.4% and 40.6%, respectively). The concordance between the two different interview methods showed almost perfect agreement for “Any history of itch rash”, “Itch rash in the last 12 months”, and “Itch in typical sites” and substantial agreement for the others. Our results show that the IEWQ obtained by telephone interview has excellent reproducibility comparing two different telephone interviews and very good concordance between in person and telephone interviews. It was also able to discriminate patients with and without AE proving to be an appropriate tool in epidemiological studies on childhood AE.