13-05-2017 | Uitgave 8/2017
Development and refinement of the WAItE: a new obesity-specific quality of life measure for adolescents
- Tijdschrift:
- Quality of Life Research > Uitgave 8/2017
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Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11136-017-1561-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
The WAItE is available from the corresponding author upon request.
Abstract
Background
Few weight-specific outcome measures, developed specifically for obese and overweight adolescents, exist and none are suitable for the elicitation of utility values used in the assessment of cost effectiveness.
Objectives
The development of a descriptive system for a new weight-specific measure.
Methods
Qualitative interviews were conducted with 31 treatment-seeking (above normal weight status) and non-treatment-seeking (school sample) adolescents aged 11–18 years, to identify a draft item pool and associated response options. 315 eligible consenting adolescents, aged 11–18 years, enrolled in weight management services and recruited via an online panel, completed two version of a long-list 29-item descriptive system (consisting of frequency and severity response scales). Psychometric assessments and Rasch analysis were applied to the draft 29-item instrument to identify a brief tool containing the best performing items and associated response options.
Results
Seven items were selected, for the final item set; all displayed internal consistency, moderate floor effects and the ability to discriminate between weight categories. The assessment of unidimensionality was supported (t test statistic of 0.024, less than the 0.05 threshold value).
Conclusions
The Weight-specific Adolescent Instrument for Economic-evaluation focuses on aspects of life affected by weight that are important to adolescents. It has the potential for adding key information to the assessment of weight management interventions aimed at the younger population.