Parent-child Agreement Across Child Health-related Quality of Life Instruments: a Review of the Literature

Overview

Journal Qual Life Res

Specialties Pharmacology
Rehabilitation Medicine

Date 2008 Jun 4

PMID 18521721

Citations 280

Authors

Penney Upton

Joanne Lawford

Christine Eiser

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Aim: To systematically review the literature published since 1999 on paediatric health-related quality of life (HRQL) in relation to parent-child agreement.

Methods: Literature searches used to identify studies which evaluated parent-child agreement for child HRQL measures.

Results: Nineteen studies were identified, including four HRQL instruments. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) was most commonly used. Differences in parent-child agreement were noted between domains for different measures. The impact of child and parent characteristics were not consistently considered; however parents of children in a nonclinical sample tended to report higher child HRQL scores than children themselves, while parents of children with health conditions tended to underestimate child HRQL.

Conclusion: Despite increasing numbers of studies considering children's HRQL, information about variables contributing to parent-child agreement levels remains limited. Authors need to consistently provide evidence for reliability and validity of measures, and design studies to systematically investigate variables that impact on levels of parent-child agreement.

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