Factor analysis of the paediatric awareness questionnaire for children and adolescents with acquired brain injury: Preliminary findings

Abstract

Background and aims: There is preliminary evidence that children and adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI) experience deficits in selfawareness, although there is a lack of validated tools to assess self-awareness in children. The Paediatric Awareness Questionnaire (PAQ) was developed to assess children's self-awareness in a range of functional areas typically affected by ABI. This study aimed to determine the underlying factor structure of the PAQ. Methods: 154 children aged 8-16 years with acquired brain injury (63% traumatic brain injury, 14% stroke, 12% tumour, 11% infection and 3% hypoxic) and their parents were recruited consecutively through the Queensland Paediatric Rehabilitation Service and completed the 37-item PAQ. Results: One-way ANOVA indicated no significant differences in child, parent and parent-child discrepancy scores between the four main aetiology groups, supporting pooling of data for factor analysis. The items on the parent PAQversion were submitted to a principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (p < .001), with adequate sampling according to Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (0.92).Afive factor solution explained 62% of the variance, with factors that reflect social-emotional functioning, physical functioning, cognitive abilities, activities of daily living, and communication. However, several items loaded on more than one factor. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the parent version of the PAQ assesses several distinct functional domains. Further research is needed to determine whether children's self-awareness varies according to functional domains after ABI.L6267706332019-03-20 <br />