[Reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Pediatric Epilepsy Medication Self-Management Questionnaire Caregiver Version].

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to develop a Japanese version of the Pediatric Epilepsy Medication Self-Management Questionnaire Caregiver Version (PEMSQ-J) and to examine its reliability and validity.

Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted among primary caregivers (N=309) of children under the age of 18 taking epilepsy medication. The PEMSQ-J was the main instrument used to collect information such as basic demographics.Cronbach's α was calculated to determine internal consistency, and the intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated to assess reproducibility. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis with covariance structure analysis was performed to confirm the goodness of fit of the model. Finally, criterion-related validity was confirmed.

Results: Analysis of responses to items on the PEMSQ-J revealed no ceiling or floor effects, and there was no marked bias in distributions in terms of skewness or kurtosis. Internal consistency assessed with Cronbach's α ranged from 0.847 to 0.935. A test of reproducibility revealed that the intraclass correlation for the total score was 0.730. Exploratory factor analysis identified two factors, which differed from the four factors in the original version. When their details and structure were examined, however, the two were interpreted as having a similar structure. Similarly to those of the original version, the goodness-of-fit indices for the four factors according to confirmatory factor analysis were close to the standard values.

Conclusion: The PEMSQ-J, which consists of 27 items with a four-factor structure, was statistically acceptable, and it was found to have a certain degree of reliability and validity.