Reliability and validity of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) Short Form 15 Generic Core Scales in Japan

To assess the reliability and validity of the Japanese translation version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 Short Form 15 (PedsQL™ 4.0 SF15).

The PedsQL™ 4.0 SF15 was administered to 229 schoolchildren aged 6–13 years and 100 pediatric outpatients aged 5–18 years and their parents.

Internal consistency reliability exceeded 0.70 for both proxy-reported and self-reported scales. Test–retest reliability demonstrated large values for parent proxy-report (range: 0.68–0.79) and moderate to large values for child self-report (range: 0.46–0.73). Parent proxy-report health-related quality of life (HRQOL) was higher than child self-report in all scales except for School Functioning. The correlations between the reports of the parents and children were moderate to high. Gender differences were observed in Social Functioning, School Functioning, and Psychosocial Health Summary, with girls reporting higher HRQOL than boys. Factor analysis indicated that four factors were extracted from the PedsQL™ 4.0 SF15 and these four factors corresponded mainly to the four scales. Known groups validity was established for proxy-report and self-report with higher HRQOL being reported for healthy children than those with psychosomatic complaints including headache and abdominal pain.

The Japanese translation version of the PedsQL™ 4.0 SF15 demonstrates good reliability and validity and could be used as a measure of HRQOL for transcultural comparisons of pediatric research in school settings and healthcare services research.