Purpose: In an evidence-based climate, clinicians seek to track outcomes during the care of infants with crying and sleeping problems. The 24-hour behavior diary is the most widely established and validated method of recording infant behaviors. However, it is time-consuming for the parents to complete and for the clinician to analyse. A one-page questionnaire that accurately assesses the infant’s patterns is a useful tool for pediatric clinicians and researchers. The Questionnaire for Unexplainable Infant Crying (QUIC) is a short and easily administered one-page questionnaire for the assessment of infant irritability, parental distress, consolability, and any improvement over time. The objective of this study was to present a new tool to asses these issues in a clinical setting and to calculate concurrent validity with the daily diary.
Methods: Parents of 30 excessively crying infants who presented consecutively were given a 7-day, 24-hour behaviour diary to complete. The infants received chiropractic treatment and on the 7th day they were given the QUIC to complete. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to assess concurrent validity between the QUIC form and the daily diary.
Results: Concurrent validity was found between the daily diary and the QUIC form in the domains of parental perceptions of the amount of infant irritability, parent distress levels, total crying and parental perceptions of consolability, and changes in night-time crying.
Conclusion: This was an initial step toward formal validation of the QUIC form which may be a useful instrument for pediatric practice and for large-scale survey studies.
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