Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children

Objective: Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of chronic disability that restricts participation in daily life for children. Thereby, it is comprised of quality of life. Quality of life (QOL) measures have been a vital part of health outcome appraisals for individuals with CP and to obtain empirical evidence for the effectiveness of a range of interventions. The CP QOL-Child is a condition-specific QOL questionnaire designed for children with CP to assess well-being rather than ill-being.

Materials & Methods: Forward and backward translations of the CP QOL-Child were performed for: (1) the primary caregiver form (for parents of children with CP aged 4-12 years); and (2) the child self-report form (for children with cerebral palsy aged 9-12 years). Psychometric properties assessment included reliability, internal consistency, and item discrimination, construct validity with Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) and Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) was done. SPSS was used to analyze the results of this study.

Results: A sample of 200 primary caregivers forchildren with CP (mean = 7.7 years) and 40 children (mean = 10.2 years) completed. Internal consistency ranged from 0.61-0.87 for the primary caregivers form, and 0.64-0.86 for the child self-report form. Reliability ranged from 0.47-0.84. Item discrimination analysis revealed that a majority of the items (80%) have high discriminating power. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a distinguishable domain structure as in the original English version. Moderate associations were found between lower QOL and more severe motor disability(GMFCS; r = .18-.32; p < .05 and MACS; r= .13 - .40; p < .05). The highest correlation between the primary caregiver and child forms on QOL was in the domain of functioning and consistent with the English version.

Conclusion: Content validity, item discriminant validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the Persian version of the CP QOL- Child were all acceptable. Further study of concurrent validity of this version is needed.