How young can children reliably and validly self-report their health-related quality of life?: An analysis of 8,591 children across age subgroups with the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales

Table 2 PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales Physical Health Summary Score: Child Self-Report Reliability and Validity

Age	Reliability		Validity
			Chronic Health Condition				Healthy Sample
	n	α	Mean	SD	% Floor	% Ceiling	Mean	SD	% Floor	% Ceiling	Chronic vs. Healthy Difference	Chronic vs. Healthy Effect Size
5 yrs	753	0.72	77.65	19.42	0.0	11.6	86.34	13.38	0.0	25.7	8.69*	0.65
6 yrs	928	0.70	80.31	17.20	0.0	16.7	86.18	13.23	0.0	23.8	5.87*	0.44
7 yrs	885	0.73	75.28	19.18	0.0	8.1	85.52	13.73	0.0	26.0	10.24*	0.75
8 yrs	875	0.79	77.47	17.73	0.0	10.7	87.36	13.77	0.0	28.8	9.88*	0.72
9 yrs	838	0.83	76.37	18.45	0.0	10.7	88.43	14.80	0.0	32.4	12.06*	0.81
10 yrs	837	0.82	77.47	19.34	0.0	13.6	88.03	13.37	0.0	30.6	10.56*	0.79
11 yrs	681	0.84	78.34	19.29	0.0	10.5	88.03	13.30	0.0	29.0	9.68*	0.73
12 yrs	679	0.83	77.92	18.84	0.0	12.4	87.13	13.95	0.0	26.7	9.21*	0.66
13 yrs	614	0.84	76.16	19.19	0.0	11.6	87.83	13.57	0.0	34.0	11.67*	0.86
14 yrs	570	0.87	74.37	22.05	0.0	11.3	89.00	13.20	0.0	30.6	14.62*	1.11
15 yrs	560	0.85	77.21	18.58	0.0	10.9	88.59	13.55	0.0	34.9	11.38*	0.84
16 yrs	331	0.87	75.55	21.75	0.0	12.4	89.13	12.74	0.0	30.2	13.58*	1.07

Note: Total N = 8,551 for reliability, Total N = 8,325 for validity.
Higher values equal better health-related quality of life.
% Floor/Ceiling = the percentage of scores at the extremes of the scaling range.
Effect sizes are designated as small (.20), medium (.50), and large (.80).
*p < .001 (independent samples t-test).

ISSN: 1477-7525