title: Validation of a disease-specific questionnaire for measuring parent-reported health-related quality of life in children with allergies.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the properties and suitability of a disease-specific questionnaire to assess parent-reported health-related quality of life (HRQL) of children and parents of children suffering from food hypersensitivity (FHS) or allergy to furred pets (AFP).
  
  
  METHODS
  The parents of 202 children with FHS and of 131 children with AFP filled in questionnaires comprising the CHQ-PF28 and the Food-Pet-Allergy in Children (FPAC) Questionnaire. Psychometric properties of the FPAC questionnaire were evaluated separately for FHS and AFP.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analyses resulted in five proposed scales: Limitations of Family/Child Activities (I), Parents' Distress (II), Child's Emotions (III), Child in School (IV) and Family Conflicts (V). Convergent/discriminant validity for scales I, II and III of both questionnaires was high; for scale IV it was moderate. All five FHS and four AFP scales were able to distinguish significantly between children with and without clinical allergy symptoms (known-group validity). Internal consistency reliability was good for scales I, II and III, but poor for scale IV.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Three valid scales were determined for both FHS and AFP (Limitations of Family/Child Activities, Parents' Distress and Child's Emotions) and can be used in clinical research.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Clinical Nursing Research and Research in Immunotherapy and Immunology, Section of Clinical Immunology at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet at Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Nicolay
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Uwe
authors.forename: Östblom
authors.initials: Ö
authors.lastname: Eva
authors.forename: Egmar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ann-Charlotte
authors.forename: Nordström
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gun
authors.forename: Gardulf
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D057805:Pets; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden