Linguistic validation of a questionnaire for the diagnosis of sleep-related breathing disorders in children

OBJECTIVES. The aim of this paper was to find in the literature the best diagnostic accuracy questionnaire for the diagnosis of sleep-related breathing disorders (SRBD) in children and to validate it in Italian language.MATERIALS AND METHODS. A detailed electronic bibliographic research was conducted to select the most accurate questionnaire in the literature. This questionnaire was subjected to translation and adaptation to the Italian version through a process of forward/backward translation and of cognitive debriefing. During the cognitive debriefing step, a sample of 20 subjects (6 males and 14 females, mean age 40.5 years) was randomly selected and tested for determining the comprehension, understanding, appropriateness and cultural significance of the Italian translated questionnaire.RESULTS. The best diagnostic accuracy questionnaire was the Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire (PSQ) in 22 items (PSQ-SRBD scale). At the end of the first step of linguistic validation process, a first Italian version of the questionnaire was released, which was improved at the end of the cognitive debriefing process.CONCLUSIONS. The PSQ-SRBD scale was the questionnaire with the best di- agnostic accuracy. Thanks to the Italian validated version, it may be used, after psychometric evaluation, as a screening tool to identify SRBD in the Italian pediatric population.