Health-related quality of life in children and adolescents: Current normative data, determinants and reliability on proxy-report

AimHealth-related quality of life (HrQoL) is a multidimensional concept including self-reported measures of physical and mental health. Throughout the last decades, HrQoL has become a more and more important outcome measure not only in clinical conditions. This study evaluates current HrQoL of healthy children and adolescents, determinants of HrQoL, and the agreement between self- and proxy-report. MethodsFrom April 2012 to July 2013, we prospectively examined 530 healthy children (13.22.1years, 236 girls) and their parents on their childrens HrQoL using the KINDL-R self-report questionnaire and the parent's proxy-report. Data was compared to the established reference value from 2007 and the agreement of self- and parent's proxy-report was assessed by calculation of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). ResultsIn general, the HrQoL improved compared to references in both children's (104.5 +/- 12.6 % of predicted reference value, P<.001) and parent's proxy-report (104.3 +/- 12.3 % of predicted reference value, P<.001). HrQoL declined with proceeding age (r=-.247, P<.001) but was not associated with BMI (r=-.035, P=.420). There was good accordance between children's reported HrQoL and the parent's proxy-report (ICC: .774). Only in the domains self-esteem' (ICC: .558) and Emotional well-being' (ICC: .612) the agreements were moderate. ConclusionsHrQoL perception has increased throughout the past 10 years and worsens with increasing age. Moreover, the parent's proxy-report of the KINDL-R questionnaire is a good supplementary method to provide additional information regarding to children's HrQoL.