Translation and pilot validation of the Danish version of the Everyday Technology Use Questionnaire (ETUQ): applied with older adults and adults living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Background: The use of everyday technologies has grown rapidly during the last decades and become an increasing part of people’s everyday life, and also now include the use of e-health technologies that are used on a daily basis for persons living with chronic health conditions, e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). There are however no validated assessments targeting the competence to use everyday- and e-health technology for these people. The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the validity of the Danish version of the Everyday Technology Use Questionnaire (ETUQ) in a sample of older persons with or without COPD where additional e-health items are included.
Method: The ETUQ was initially systematically translated according to a dual panel approach. 47 persons with and without COPD were then interviewed using the tool. A Rasch model was used to evaluate aspects of validity evidence in relation to response processes, internal scale validity and precision in measures.
Results: After collapsing some scale step categories used in the ETUQ, a reduced number of items (n=40) demonstrated acceptable goodness-of-fit to the Rasch model. This reduced number of items demonstrated overall high unidimensionality, person response validity and precision in measures.
Conclusion: The findings from this pilot study support the use of ETUQ as a validated functional outcomes assessment also in people with COPD in Denmark.
Application to Practice: Inclusion of everyday e-health items in the ETUQ supports use of the tool to evaluate and predict the potential use of such health care approaches in praxis.