title: Health-related quality of life in children assessed by their parents: evaluation of the psychometric properties of the CHQ-PF50 in two German clinical samples.
abstract: The aim of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the German translation of the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ). Parents of two clinical samples were asked to rate the quality of life of their children using the German version of the CHQ. Item internal consistency (item-scale correlation) and internal consistency of scales were tested; quartiles and factor analysis were conducted. The results of the German clinical samples were compared with US clinical samples (t-test). The two clinical German sub-groups were compared using multivariate analysis (MANOVA). The psychometric testing of the CHQ showed good results. Internal consistency of the hypothesized scales were all higher than 0.70. The results of the factor analysis confirmed the results of the US norm sample: As expected, the subscales loaded on two factors explaining 57.4% of the total variance. The group comparison supported the discriminative properties of the CHQ. Preliminary psychometric findings support use of the German version of the CHQ. The next step will be the testing of healthy German samples and development of norm scores.
authors.affiliation: Center for Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation, University of Bremen, Germany. warschb@uni-bremen.de
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Warschburger
authors.forename: Jeanne M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Landgraf
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Petermann
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Freidel
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D001249:Asthma / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003876:Dermatitis, Atopic / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D019988:Children with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D013121:Spinal Curvatures / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*