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 4 PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales Emotional Functioning Scale 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	750	0.70	72.83	23.36	0.0	20.6	79.11	17.88	0.2	24.4	6.28**	0.35
6 yrs	926	0.70	75.45	21.73	0.0	24.1	78.73	18.46	0.1	24.7	3.29*	0.18
7 yrs	886	0.73	69.44	22.10	1.1	13.4	77.38	19.07	0.0	24.6	7.95**	0.42
8 yrs	874	0.75	70.96	19.37	0.0	10.3	77.53	18.97	0.2	20.8	6.57**	0.35
9 yrs	840	0.77	72.01	21.17	0.0	14.1	78.17	18.28	0.2	19.7	6.16**	0.34
10 yrs	840	0.77	73.93	19.94	0.0	14.8	79.88	17.72	0.0	22.0	5.96**	0.34
11 yrs	680	0.79	74.60	20.41	0.4	15.3	81.04	17.51	0.0	25.2	6.44**	0.37
12 yrs	678	0.79	73.68	19.72	0.0	12.8	79.22	18.24	0.2	21.7	5.54**	0.30
13 yrs	615	0.81	72.55	21.22	0.0	13.5	80.13	18.15	0.0	23.9	7.57**	0.42
14 yrs	572	0.79	72.92	20.22	0.4	14.6	81.02	17.78	0.3	23.6	8.10**	0.46
15 yrs	562	0.81	70.90	21.20	0.9	13.5	79.72	18.57	0.0	27.3	8.82**	0.47
16 yrs	332	0.81	70.74	21.97	0.6	14.0	80.15	17.99	0.0	20.9	9.41**	0.52

Note: Total N = 8,555 for reliability, Total N = 8,319 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 < .05, **p < .001 (independent samples t-test).

ISSN: 1477-7525