Abstract
Purpose:
To validate survey items examining self-reported spectacle compliance among 6th thru 11th grade students and their parents.
Methods:
Subjects were Tohono O’odham students enrolled in a longitudinal study on refractive error and visual development where they were provided spectacles. Several weeks after dispensing, parents and students were asked to complete a brief survey that asked the student’s frequency of wear in general, at home, and at school using a 5 point Likert scale ranging from “never” to “always” and reasons for spectacle non-compliance. Surveys were distributed through the mail, in person, or via telephone. Descriptive statistics and Rasch analysis using Winsteps software (ver 3.74.0) were used to validate these items.
Results:
In the student questionnaire, two response options [“Hardly Ever” and “Usually”] were not distinguishable; therefore response options were reduced from 5 to 3. Once reduced, the student items showed no large infit or outfit, person separation index was 0.99, and reliability was 0.49. In the parent questionnaire no large infit or outfit was observed while the person separation index and reliability for the parent questionnaire was 4.39 and 0.95, respectively.
Conclusions:
Our study indicated that while the items in the parent questionnaire appear to be feasible and reliable to assess spectacle compliance by their children, modifications to the items in the child questionnaire are needed to improve its functionality. Thus reducing the response categories for the student questionnaire from 5 to 3 and adding a few more items may result in a useful tool for measuring spectacle compliance among highly astigmatic children. Further studies are needed to determine which types of instruments are useful to measure compliance among school aged children.