title: Designing an oral mucositis assessment instrument for use in children: generating items using a nominal group technique.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There was a need to develop a mucositis instrument that would be specific for use with children. This paper describes the step of generating items in the process of developing a new instrument for the assessment of oral mucositis in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nine health care professionals with expertise in pediatric cancer, mucositis assessment, and oral assessment in children were invited to participate in a nominal group technique to generate items that should be included in an instrument.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty items were generated initially. Voting processes established that six of these items were thought to be necessary for inclusion: (1) presence of ulcers, (2) pain assessment, (3) amount of pain medication received, (4) effect on eating, (5) drooling-pooling of saliva, and (6) effect on drinking. Using these six items, an initial draft of an instrument was developed that could be used to assess oral mucositis in children, namely, the Children's International Mucositis Evaluation Scale.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The six items generated by this process provided the basis for a simple, feasible, and reliable instrument. With increased clinical research investigating interventions to reduce and prevent oral mucositis, such an instrument will be critical to the effective conduct of this research in children. Further testing of this instrument is necessary.
authors.affiliation: Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, 123 Edward Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1E2, Canada. deborah.tomlinson@sickkids.ca
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tomlinson
authors.forename: Faith
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.forename: Nathaniel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Treister
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baggott
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Judd
authors.forename: Eleanor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hendershot
authors.forename: Anne-Marie
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Maloney
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Doyle
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: Lillian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sung
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013280:Stomatitis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology