Comparing the Visual Analogue Scale and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children with Oral Clefts

George L. Wehby, Hodad Naderi, James M. Robbins, Timothy N. Ansley and Peter C. Damiano
Additional contact information
George L. Wehby: Departments of Health Management and Policy, Economics, and Preventive and Community Dentistry, and Public Policy Center, University of Iowa, 145 N. Riverside Dr. 100 College of Public Health Building, Room N248, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
Hodad Naderi: Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
James M. Robbins: Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Arkansas, 1 Children's Way, Little Rock, AR 72202, USA
Timothy N. Ansley: Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, University of Iowa, 314 LC, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
Peter C. Damiano: Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry and Public Policy Center, University of Iowa, 212 SQ, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: Objectives : To evaluate the performance of the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), in measuring overall health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in children with oral clefts relative to the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL TM ) Generic Core Scales, one of the most validated and commonly used methods to measure pediatric HRQoL. Methods : The study included a population-based sample of 307 children aged 5 to 10 years who were born in Iowa, New York, and Arkansas with non-syndromic oral clefts. Data on HRQoL were obtained using a VAS and PedsQL TM via self-administered interviews with the parents. We evaluated the correlations between the VAS and PedsQL TM total scores, and the correlations of each of these two scales with a series of child health and wellbeing indicators. Results : The VAS and PedsQL TM scores were well-correlated ( r = 0.67). There were no prominent differences between the correlations of VAS and PedsQL TM with the selected indicators of child health and wellbeing; differences in correlations were less than 0.1. Differences in HRQoL by cleft type were more pronounced on the PedsQL TM . Conclusions : Our study finds the VAS to perform relatively well in measuring overall HRQoL among children with oral clefts. The VAS may be useful as a screening tool to identify children with oral clefts at risk of low HRQoL for referral into more comprehensive evaluations and for measuring average HRQoL across a sample of children.

Keywords: oral clefts; quality of life; visual analogue scale; child development; birth defects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4280/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/4/4280/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:4:p:4280-4291:d:35171

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().