The Quality of Life in Care questionnaire: An assessment of feasibility, test–retest reliability and responsiveness in a clinical sample

Abstract

This study determined the feasibility, test–retest reliability and responsiveness of the Quality of Life in Care (QOLIC), a measure of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) developed specifically for children in public care. Based on the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) model, this questionnaire has previously demonstrated good validity and internal reliability. Two forms of the questionnaire are available, a self-completed report for children and a parallel proxy report for completion by carers. Thirty-five children aged between 8 and 17 years, and their carers, completed the PedsQL generic module and QOLIC on two separate occasions. At the second completion, carers and children were asked to rate whether the child's physical and emotional health had changed (improved, got worse or stayed the same) since the first questionnaire was completed to enable test–retest reliability and responsiveness to a change in health to be calculated. Both measures demonstrated good feasibility with missing responses of less than 1%. No floor effects and minimal to moderate ceiling effects were found. Test–retest reliability could not be established due to the small numbers reporting no change in their health status. However, it can be argued that responsiveness is more important, when looking at a changeable population such as this one. Good responsiveness was established for self-reported PedsQL and QOLIC measures, and for the proxy version of QOLIC. Therefore, this study provides further evidence that QOLIC provides a valid and reliable measure of HRQoL. QOLIC is easy to use and therefore has the potential to have a major impact on clinical practice with children in public care. It is recommended that future studies focus on assessing the ability of the measure to differentiate between groups of “looked-after” children.

Keywords:

• quality of life
• PedsQL™
• reliability
• responsiveness
• looked-after children
• psychometrics

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the “looked-after” children's health teams who contributed to this study and all the children and their carers who participated.

This study was funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.