An evaluation of multiple choice questionnaires for the assessment of knowledge in diabetic children and their families.

The comparability of five multiple choice questionnaires was tested in 69 diabetic children and their parents. Analysis of variance showed that 68% of the variation in the scores was due to differences between individuals, with only 8% due to differences between questionnaires. A second study then compared results from diabetic children, their mothers and fathers, and some nurses and doctors, who each completed one questionnaire. Analysis of variance of this study showed that the mothers, fathers, and nurses scored about the same, but more than the children (p less than 0.05), whilst the scores of the doctors were not significantly different from any of the other groups.