Development and validation of an instrument for monitoring child development indicators

Objective

To create and validate an instrument for child development monitoring.

Methods

Methodological study, based on the World Bank's proposition to monitor child development indicators in low‐ and middle‐income countries. The stages of the study included the following: development of an inventory of items for child development evaluation, based on open access instruments; content validation by a group of experts on the topic, using consensus techniques; selection of questions to describe children and their families; pre‐test of the instrument during the vaccination campaign in 2016 in three municipalities, and conducting cognitive interviews.

Results

A total of 431 items were sent for the evaluation of the specialists; 77 were initially excluded and the others were evaluated in‐person by the group, with 162 items covering the motor, cognitive, language, and socio‐emotional domains, distributed in ten age ranges. Questions about health, nutrition, early learning, protection and safety, and responsive care were also included. The instrument was applied by volunteer undergraduate students to 367 mothers of children under 5 years, showing good adherence of the caregivers. The time of application of the questionnaire was, on average, 20 minutes. The cognitive interviews allowed the final adjustment of 19 items of the instrument for better understanding by the caregivers.

Conclusions

The instrument created and validated by experts fills a gap, as it allows a comprehensive evaluation of the development of children under 5 years at the population level, using a fast and inexpensive tool, and can be useful for monitoring indicators of development in Brazilian children in vaccination campaigns.