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PEDIATRIC ANESTHESIA

Validation of Measures of Parents' Preoperative Anxiety and Anesthesia Knowledge

Kathryn M. Miller, PhD^*, Tim Wysocki, PhD^*,||, Joseph F. Cassady, Jr., MD^,¶, Dawn Cancel, MA, and Neil Izenberg, MD^§

*Division of Behavioral Pediatrics and Psychology, Department of Anesthesiology, Nemours Children's Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida; §Nemours Foundation Center for Children's Health Media, Wilmington, Delaware; and Departments of ||Psychiatry and ¶Anesthesiology, Mayo Medical School, Jacksonville, Florida

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Tim Wysocki, PhD, Nemours Children's Clinic, 807 Nira St., Jacksonville, FL 32207.

Parents' anxiety about their children's anesthesia may adversely affect the children's outcomes and compromise the quality of informed consent. Studies of these issues have been limited by the lack of validated measures of parental anxiety and knowledge surrounding anesthesia. In the present study, we evaluated psychometric properties of the Amsterdam Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale (APAIS) and the Standard Anesthesia Learning Test (SALT) among 85 parents who participated in an evaluation of the effects of a videotape about pediatric anesthesia. The results supported the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity of both instruments and documented the equivalence of two forms of the SALT. Factor analysis supported the previously demonstrated factor structure of the APAIS, further confirming its construct validity. We conclude that the APAIS and SALT are reliable and valid measures of parental anxiety and knowledge of pediatric anesthesia that can be used for clinical and research purposes.

Implications: This study verified the reliability and validity of two questionnaires for measuring parents' knowledge and anxiety about pediatric anesthesia. These questionnaires can be used in further research on factors affecting parental anxiety and knowledge before their children's surgery.

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