Agreement of Children and Parents Scores on Chinese Version of Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0: Further Psychometric Development

Quality of life (QoL) is an important index that allows health practitioners to understand the overall health status of an individual. One commonly used reliable and valid QoL instrument with parallel items on parent and child questionnaires, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL), has been being developed since 1997. However, the use of parent- and child-reported PedsQL is still under development. Using multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analyses and absolute agreement analyses across parent and child questionnaires can further help health practitioners understand the construct of PedsQL, and the feasibility of PedsQL in clinical. We analyzed the questionnaires of 254 parent–child dyads. MTMM through confirmatory factor analyses and percent of smallest real difference (SRD%) were used for analyzing. Our results supported the construct validity of the PedsQL. Four traits (physical, emotional, social, and school) and two methods (parent-proxy reports and child self-reports) were distinguished by MTMM. Moreover, the results of absolute agreements suggested that parent-rated and child-rated PedsQL are close (SRD% = 17.88–30.55 %); thus, a parent-rated PedsQL can be a secondary outcome representing a child’s health. We conclude that the PedsQL is useful for measuring children’s QoL, and has helpful clinical implications.