Measuring health-related quality of life in children from different perspectives using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) and teachers' ratings

摘要

Background Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is a concept being increasingly used in paediatric health care. Since health professionals have to rely on both child and adult reports of the child's condition, more information as to which factors moderate the correspondence between these reports would be useful.Aim and methods This study attempted to identify the cross-informant variance (CIV) in child, parent and teacher reports about the child's HRQL in a large sample of elementary school children. We used the Austrian-German version of the generic core Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory? (PedsQL?) for children and parents as well as a short HRQL rating scale derived from PedsQL? for teachers. We identified the CIV with the use of intraclass correlation and paired score differences in 620 triple assessments, compared them to results of other PedsQL? studies and tried to identify the factors having an impact on CIV and on the self-reported HRQL of children whose proxy ratings demonstrated a large CIV.