Development and Validation of EVANpedia for the Assessment of Perioperative Experience in Pediatric Patients.

BACKGROUND

Patient-reported outcome and experience measures are essential for advancing pediatric patient-centered care in the perioperative context. Combining complementary patient-centered instruments supports a broader, multidimensional evaluation of perioperative care. The Pediatric Scale for Quality of Recovery is a patient-reported outcome measure assessing quality of recovery after surgery and anesthesia in children and represents an important step in this field. This study aimed to develop and validate a self-reported instrument, the Evaluation du Vécu de l'Anesthésie Générale en Pédiatrie (EVANpedia), designed to assess experience in children and adolescents within 24 h after surgery.

METHODS

The study included a developmental phase to generate items and a psychometric validation phase. The multidimensional structure of EVANpedia was explored using factor analysis, item internal consistency, and discriminant analyses. The Rasch model assessed the unidimensionality of each dimension, and reliability was evaluated using McDonald's ω coefficient. Convergent and external validity were examined using concurrent self-report instruments and clinical data.

RESULTS

Six hundred patients (7 to 17 yr old) were included across four anesthesia departments. After the development and validation phases, EVANpedia comprised 26 items grouped into 6 dimensions: anxiety, thirst and hunger, loss of autonomy, pain, nausea and vomiting, and confusion. Internal construct validity was high, with excellent fit statistics across all dimensions (from 0.95 to 1.03). Correlations between EVANpedia scores and all concurrent measures supported convergent validity. Nine percent of children reported disappointment with their perioperative experience, showing significantly lower overall EVANpedia scores (50.1 ± 12.1 vs . 62.8 ± 15.1; P < 0.001). Overall and all dimensional EVANpedia scores demonstrated excellent sensitivity to clinical change, supporting the responsiveness of the instrument.

CONCLUSIONS

EVANpedia is a psychometrically robust self-reported instrument for assessing the perioperative experience in children and adolescents.