Måleegenskaper ved den norske versjonen av Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ)

Abstract

Description: Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ) is a set of generic quality of life instrument versions developed to measure physical and psychosocial well-being in children 5 to 18 years old. CHQ is meant to measure 14 different somatic and psychosocial concepts, which can be summarized into two sum scores – psycho-social and physical health. Higher scores indicate better health-related quality of life. There are several versions of the CHQ, for both self-report and parent-proxy report. The full-length versions of CHQ, CHQ-PF98 (parent report) and CHQ-CF87 (self-report), were developed and tested in 1990, while the short versions, CHQ-PF50 (parent report) and CHQ-PF28 (parent report), were developed in 1994 and 1995, respectively (Landgraf, Abetz, & Ware, 1996). Dependent on the version used, the time for completing the questionnaires vary from five to 25 minutes, and there are no special requirements with regard to competence for administration. CHQ was translated into Norwegian by Selvaag and colleagues in 2001 according to international guidelines. HealthActCHQ has the copyright for all versions and translations.
Literature search: We included 14 Norwegian and six Swedish and Danish publications. All Norwegian publications reported psychometric data. The Norwegian publications varied from 31 to 229 participants, with an age range from 4 to 24 years. Publications included samples from both clinical populations, clinical and controls («case-control-design») and the general population.
Psychometrics: Construct validity and factor structure are not clearly defined. Clinical discriminative validity was satisfactory. Up to date, no robust norms for CHQ for the Norwegian or Scandinavian general population are established. Reliability (internal consistency, test-retest reliability and sensitivity for change) was judged as good.
Conclusion: CHQ self-report and parent-proxy report versions have shown unsatisfactory construct validity and factor structure in Norwegian/Scandinavian studies. However, clinical validity and reliability was judged as good. There are no Norwegian/Scandinavian norms. Until now, the CHQ has only been used among children and adolescents with chronic somatic conditions. The self-report version is developed for children aged ten years or older and thereby excludes quality of life perspectives of younger children. The use of CHQ is therefore currently limited in Norway.