The children's surgical worries questionnaire:: Reliability and validity of a new self-report measure

The main aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Children's Surgical Worries Questionnaire developed by Quiles, Mendez, and Hidalgo (1999). We applied the questionnaire to a representative sample of 1,311 Spanish-speaking, elementary school students. The exploratory factor analysis isolated only I factor-corroborated by the confirmatory factor analysis-Children Surgical Worries, which included 17 items and accounted for the 22.13% of the variance. Internal consistency (.83) and test-retest reliability with a 7- to 10-day interval (.90) were satisfactory. Surgical worries correlated positively with medical fears (.60). The most worrisome situations for children were those related to the negative repercussions of surgery, pain, and separation from parents. Girls (p = .000) and children who had never had an operation (p = .005) presented a higher degree of surgical worries. No statistically significant differences were found regarding age nor the interaction of gender, age, and surgical experience variables.