Design and Content Validity of Health Games for Children With Atopic Dermatitis

Abstract

Objective: The success of managing atopic dermatitis (AD) largely depends on patient adherence to treatment. Achieving adherence requires more than knowledge transfer; it also requires a change in patients' health behavior. Therefore, we conducted this study to develop and validate the content of health games for the pediatric population with AD. Methods: The study was conducted from August 2019 to February 2024 in the Hospital Complex of the Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. The content of health games about AD were the book Oli e o Grande Desafio da Coceira™ ("Oli and the Great Itching Challenge") and the games Dermatrilha™ ("Dermatrail") and Caixinha Surpresa da Dermatite™ ("Dermatitis Surprise Box"). The instrument development process consisted of 5 stages: planning of the instruments, development of the instruments, development of content validation questionnaires, evaluation by an expert committee comprising 5 pediatric dermatologists, 5 hospital psychologists, 5 illustrators/designers, and 5 early childhood education teachers, and a pre-test with the target audience comprising 25 children with AD aged 5 to 12 years. The content validity index was used to assess content validity. Results: The content validity index was 0.94 in the evaluation by the expert committee and 0.95 in the evaluation by the target audience. Among the games, the general content validity index was 0.95 among the members of the expert committee and 0.92 among the target audience, being higher than 0.80 for all items. Conclusion: The health games evaluated in this study are useful psychoeducational tools with high content validity for use in the therapeutic education of children with AD.