Child Health Measurement Project

Children's Health Survey for Asthma-Child Version

(CHSA-C)

Both Parent and Child-Report Versions Now Available!

Based on positive response generated by the parent-report Children's Health Survey for Asthma (CHSA) and requests for a companion instrument for child completion, we embarked on the Child Health Information Reporting Project (CHIRP). Funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, CHIRP was designed not only to create a child-friendly instrument but also to explore a question of considerable debate in outcome measurement - at what age do children become dependable reporters of their own health status?

To explore whether children and adolescents can validly and reliably report on their own health status, we assessed acceptability of child-report asthma-related health status questionnaires to children and parents, feasibility of questionnaire administration to and completion by children, and age-specific psychometric quality of asthma-related health status data obtained from children using a child-report version of the Children's Health Survey for Asthma, the CHSA-Child Version (CHSA-C).

The CHSA-C was adapted from the CHSA parent-completed instrument. Several child-friendly modifications such as wording changes, a calendar review to facilitate understanding of a 2-week recall period (used throughout the CHSA-C) and visual representation of Likert-type response choices were made. Qualitative interviews with children and parents were conducted to determine whether terminology and questionnaire design was appropriate and understandable to children.

A larger quantitative study assessed psychometric properties of the CHSA-C with a diverse sample of over 400 children, 7-16 years of age. Psychometric properties have recently been published in Pediatric Asthma, Allergy & Immunology. 2008;21(2):89-98.

The resulting instrument is an interviewer-administered (children ages 7-16 years) or self-completed (children 10-16 years) measure for children with asthma. The CHSA-C can be used alone or as a companion to the parent-completed CHSA.

• English CHSA and CHSA-C versions and the US Spanish CHSA version are available for use in non-commercial research or practice applications at no cost.  
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If you have questions about using the CHSA or CHSA-C, please contact Senior Research Associate, Child Health Measurement Project at dorchmp@aap.org