Infant health-related Quality of life Instrument (IQI)

Generic

Measure domains: Sleeping; feeding; breathing; stooling/poo; mood; skin; interaction

Summary of development:  The IQI was developed as a generic preference-based measure for infants 0-1 years old. Based on literature searches, expert reviews, and family interviews, the following eight health attributes were chosen as most relevant for infants: sleeping, feeding, breathing, stooling, mood, skin, spitting, and general discomfort. Spitting was removed as a domain in the instrument’s final seven items, and general discomfort was thought to be too vague, so “interaction” was used since it was more appropriate for infants (Jabrayilov, 2018). This measure is based on valuation of health states using Discrete Choice Experiments. The IQI is administered on a mobile app with four levels of responses to each domain used to generate a single HRQOL score. Because of its recent development, there are very few articles about the IQI. Krabbe (2020) describes developing an algorithm to rate health states using DCE (Discrete Choice Experiments) and says next steps for this measure are using it in clinical settings and general population and comparing it with validated measures.

It is important to note that health utility scales that are made in the econometric tradition, such as the IQI, do not necessarily need psychometric testing such as internal consistency or structural validity.  For these measures, other types of validity such as known groups validity and convergent validity may be useful.