English publication
Vogels, T., Verrips, G.H., Verloove-Vanhorick, S.P., Fekkes, M., Kamphuis, R.P.,
Koopman, H.M., Theunissen, N.C.M., & Wit, J.M. (1998). Measuring
health-related quality of life in children: the development of the TACQOL-Parent
Form. Quality of Life Research, 7, 457-465.
Abstract
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL), conceptualized as patients' own
evaluations of their health status, is an important criterion in evaluating
health and health care and in the treatment of individual patients. Until
now, few systematic attempts have been made to develop instruments to
assess the HRQoL of children using such a conceptualization. This article
describes the conceptualization and results of a study aiming to develop
such an instrument for children aged 6-15 years using their parents as
a proxy. The feasibility and psychometric performance of the instrument
were evaluated in a study of 77 patients of the paediatric out-patient
clinic of Leiden University Hospital. For each of the a priori-defined
domains, a parent form scale could be constructed with satisfactory reliability
and moderate correlations with the other scales. Only some of the parents
indicating health status problems also signalled negative reactions to
these problems. This is, in our view, a strong argument for the distinction
between health status and quality of life (QoL). The correlation coefficients
between the parent form and a children's questionnaire were low. Overall,
the psychometric performance of the TACQOL parent form looks promising,
which suggests that this instrument - with some modifications - can indeed
be used to assess group differences in HRQoL in children. The results,
however, should be replicated in larger samples, currently under study.
The relation between parents' proxy reports on the HRQoL of their children
and children's self-reports needs further investigation.
Keywords
health related quality of life; children; TACQOL;