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Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Adolescent Populations: An Empirical Comparison of the CHU9D and the PedsQLTM 4.0 Short Form 15

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Abstract

Objective

The aim was to conduct an empirical assessment of the measurement properties of the preference-based Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D) versus the non-preference-based Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL)™ 4.0 Short Form 15 Generic Core Scales (referred to as ‘PedsQL’) in an Australian community-based sample of adolescents.

Methods

An online survey including the CHU9D, the PedsQL, a self-reported general health question, and socio-demographic questions was administered to adolescents (aged 15–17 years). Descriptive summary statistics and psychometric analyses were conducted to assess levels of agreement and convergent validity between the instruments.

Results

A total of 775 adolescents (mean ± SD age 15.8 ± 0.8 years) completed the survey. The mean ± SD scores of the CHU9D and the PedsQL were 0.72 ± 0.22 and 72.86 ± 16.56, respectively. For both instruments, there were significant differences in health-related quality of life scores according to self-reported health status and socio-economic status. Overall, both the Spearman’s correlation (r = 0.63) and the intraclass correlation coefficient (0.77) suggested a high level of agreement.

Conclusions

The findings indicate good levels of agreement overall between the CHU9D and PedsQL and provide further support for the validity of the application of the CHU9D in the economic evaluation of adolescent health care treatment and service programmes.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the adolescent study participants who kindly gave up their time to participate in this study. This study was funded by an Australian NHMRC Project Grant (Grant Number 1021899 entitled ‘Adolescent values for the economic evaluation of adolescent health care treatment and preventive programs’). GC was supported by a grant funded by the financial support of the Cancer Council SA’s Beat Cancer Project on behalf of its donors and the State Government of South Australia, through the Department of Health together with the support of the Flinders Medical Centre Foundation and its donors and partners.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

KDP drafted the initial manuscript. GC performed the statistical analysis. JR and GC conceived of the study, and participated in its design and data collection. All authors read, revised, and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gang Chen.

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Conflict of interest

KS was the developer of the CHU9D instrument. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee, Flinders University (Project Number 5508). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Availability of data and material

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article may be available upon request from the lead author, who will ensure any changes to the project do not invalidate the project’s ethical approval in accordance with the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee approval letter.

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Petersen, K.D., Chen, G., Mpundu-Kaambwa, C. et al. Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Adolescent Populations: An Empirical Comparison of the CHU9D and the PedsQLTM 4.0 Short Form 15. Patient 11, 29–37 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-017-0265-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-017-0265-5

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