Abstract
Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is recognized as an important health outcome measurement for pediatric patients. HRQOL in children are needed to gain a better understanding of the impact of public policies, interventions, therapies, and the prediction of health and social care need. In view of the lack of reliable HRQOL instruments for children in Arabic, the present study aims to translate the PedsQLTM4.0 self-report and proxy-report for young children (ages 5-7 years), and Children (ages 8-12), evaluate psychometric properties of the Arabic Lebanon version; and to evaluate HRQOL of children in rural and urban areas in Lebanon. Methods: PedsQLTM4.0 was translated and adapted into Arabic using the standard approach provided by Varni JW. The Arabic version was administered to a representative sample of 368 children aged 5-12 years and their parents. The psychometric properties were then evaluated. Results: The rate of missing data for self-report and proxy-report was very low (0.51% and 0.46% of items). All child self-report, and parent proxy-report subscales exceeded the minimum reliability standard of 0.70 for alpha coefficient, except emotional subscale of young child self-report and proxy-report, and, the social subscale of child self-report (alphas ranging from 0.60 to 0.66). Factor analysis yielded patterns of factor correlation comparable to the original version. The emotional functioning of children is low, where most children feel afraid, sad, and angry. Children resident in rural areas had higher social scores than those in urban areas. The HRQOL of girls is higher than boys; Children undergoing treatment for cancer rated their HRQOL as poorer in all dimensions. Conclusions: The results support the validity of the PedsQLTM4.0 self-report and proxy-report Arabic version. Habitat has a minor influence on HRQOL of children. Further psychometric evaluation in a larger sample of children, in other departments of Lebanon is recommended to provide firmer conclusions.
Highlights
The PedsQLTM4.0 core Version was administered according to the terms of the user agreement between the authors and distributors, which approved the cultural adaptation, and validation of the Peds 4.0 into Arabic
The Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) study described in this paper was carried out using the PedsQLTM4.0 (CF & PF), developed by Dr James W
We explored cut-off points for at-risk status for impaired HRQOL by examining the PedsQL4.0 scale scores for 1 SD below the mean of the total population sample
Summary
The last decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in the development and utilization of pediatric health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures (Varni, Burwinkle, & Lane, 2005; Varni, Limbers, & Burwinkle, 2007; Solans et al, 2008; MAPI Research Institute) that focuses on individual’s subjective evaluation of physical and psychological status and overall sense of well-being (Sabbah et al, 2003; Mistry, Stevens, & Gorelick, 2009; Giannakopoulos et al, 2009; Stevanovic, 2009) (Eshaghi, Ramezani, Shahsanaee, & Pooya, 2006; Berkes et al, 2010). The parent proxy-report instruments are required in situations when children are unable to provide self-report (Varni et al, 2007; Solans et al, 2008), in. HRQOL in children is needed to gain a better understanding of the impact of public policies, interventions, therapies, and the prediction of health and social care need. In view of the lack of reliable HRQOL instruments for children in Arabic, the present study aims to translate the PedsQLTM4.0 self-report and proxy-report for young child (aged 5 - 7 years), and child (aged 8 - 12 years), evaluate psychometric properties of the Arabic Lebanon version; and to evaluate HRQOL of children in rural and urban areas in Lebanon. Conclusions: The results support the validity of the PedsQLTM4.0 self-report and proxy-report Arabic version. Further psychometric evaluation in a larger sample of children, in other departments of Lebanon is recommended to provide firmer conclusions
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