Validation of the German version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) in childhood cancer patients off treatment and children with epilepsy

The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory(TM) (PedsQL(TM)) is a relatively new instrument developed in the US to assess health-related quality of life (HRQL) in healthy and ill children and adolescents. It is quick and easy to use, suitable for assessment by children and parents and based on a modular approach with a generic measure addressing all general domains of HRQL and disease-specific modules. We report here the results of translating the original US generic core instrument and the cancer module into German and testing the German PedsQL(TM) in samples of paediatric patients who have been treated for cancer or epilepsy. Like in studies with the original instrument, score distributions tended to be skewed toward higher HRQL, but a full response range was demonstrated for each item. The German PedsQL(TM) is reliable in terms of internal consistency with the majority of scales exceeding a Cronbach's alpha of 0.70. Clinical validity was confirmed by differences between the cancer and epilepsy groups in the expected direction and by the ability of the PedsQL(TM) to discriminate between subjects with different degrees of medical and psychosocial sequelae. Comparing our findings to US results, the German PedsQL(TM) seems to be equivalent to the original version. Future methodologic research should evaluate construct validity, sensitivity and responsiveness, and test the usefulness of the instrument in other clinical populations and healthy children.