Toward an Improved Scale for Assessing Symptom Severity in Children With Acute Otitis Media.

The objective of the present study was to determine whether changes in the previously developed 7-item Acute Otitis Media Severity of Symptoms scale could improve its responsiveness and its longitudinal construct validity. The items "diminished activity" and "diminished appetite" had low or borderline levels of responsiveness and longitudinal construct validity. Dropping these items seems to be potentially advantageous.