The quality of life for cancer children (QOLCC) for Taiwanese children with cancer (part II): feasibility, cross-informants variance and clinical validity.
The quality of life in childhood cancer (QOLCC) is a research instrument that has been developed to assess the quality of life for children and adolescents who suffer from cancer in Taiwan. The current paper is the second of a two-part series of research reports. Part I is reported in this journal (Yeh et al., 2003). Part II describes the range of measurement, concordance of cross-informants reports, and clinical validity of Taiwanese pediatric cancer children (7-12 years) and adolescents (13-18 years) and their parents/caregivers. Due to the cognitive ability of children and adolescents, data were analyzed for children and adolescent separately. The validity of cross-referenced information between parent and child forms was subsequently examined using Pearson product correlation. The feasibility (percentage of missing values per item) and range of measurement [percentage of minimum (floor effect) and maximum (ceiling effect) possible scores] was calculated for the five QOLCC and the total scale score. The findings of medium to high correlation of the patient/parent responses strongly imply that relevant information might be obtainable through parents when children are unable or unwilling to complete the assessment instrument. Feasibility for the QOLCC was very good.
Yeh
Chao-Hsing
CH
Graduate School of Nursing, Chang Gung University, Kwei-San, Tao-Yuen, Taiwan. cyeh@mail.cgu.edu.tw
Hung
Li-Chen
LC
Chao
Kuo-Yu
KY
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan / Q000208:ethnology