TuCASA questionnaire for assessment of children with obstructive sleep apnea: validation.

OBJECTIVE:The aim of the present study was to validate The Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA) questionnaire for use in the Brazilian population. METHODS:Of the total 62 children who participated in the present study (27 girls), aged 4 to 11 years, 45 (72.6%) had sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) diagnosed by polysomnography, while 17 (27.4%) had no sleep disorders. Translation, back-translation, and pretesting were previously performed. The final Portuguese-language version of TuCASA was administered to the participants from May 2012 to August 2013. The interviewer was blinded to presence or absence of SDB. Cronbach's alpha for the overall scale (with 95% CI) and the effect of excluding any items were evaluated. RESULTS:There was no difference among TuCASA items/score and the presence of SDB with either age or gender. The TuCASA had a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.726 (95% CI 0.614 to 0.817), which denotes satisfactory internal consistency - a finding reinforced by evaluation of the effect of item exclusion on the questionnaire. Convergent validity was also satisfactory, in as much as most correlations were positive and significant. CONCLUSION:The translated version of the TuCASA questionnaire was validated for Brazilian populations and proved to be a reliable, validated instrument that can be used in clinical practice for evaluation of children with symptoms of SDB.