Validity of the crying pattern questionnaire in a sample of excessively crying babies

Abstract

A short and simple questionnaire for the assessment of duration and bouts of fussing and crying behaviour in infants, the Crying Pattern Questionnaire (CPQ), was compared with a 7-day 24 hour systematic diary record. Moderate to good convergence between maternal reports in the CPQ and the diary were found for duration of fuss/cry behaviour. The convergences were lower but highly significant for reports of the number of bouts of crying in 24 hours. Slightly poorer agreement was also found when mothers reported that the infants had large variations in the day to day amounts of fussing and crying. The total amount of fussing and crying was overestimated by the mothers in the CPQ relative to the diary by 13%. The data support that the CPQ may be a useful instrument for large scale community surveys of the prevalence of excessive crying.