Kids-CAT

Generic

Measure domains: Physical wellbeing; psychological wellbeing; parent relations; social support and peers; school wellbeing; chronic-generic

Summary of development:  The KIDSCREEN project was a joint project by 13 countries in Europe (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) in the early 2000’s. The goal of the project was to create a generic HRQOL item for children and adolescents. Focus groups were used to determine children’s and their parents’ opinions about HRQOL and what they considered as the most important aspects. The most common health attributes mentioned in the interviews were rated by experts in childhood HRQOL, then children and parents ranked these attributes in order of importance. The dimensions identified were: Physical well-being; Psychological well-being; Moods and emotions; Self-perception; Autonomy; Parental relations and home life; Social support and peers; School environment; Social acceptance; and Financial Resources (Ravens-Sieberer 2001). A pilot version of a questionnaire was given to children and parents who then reported on ease of use, readability of questions, and scales for responses (Detmar 2006).

The first version of the KIDSCREEN had 52 questions, and subsequent versions were reduced to 27 and 10 questions. Item reduction was done using exploratory factor analysis, Mokken scale analysis, Rasch partial credit modeling, DIF (Differential Item Functioning) (using Zumbo’s logistic regression method), MAP analyses, and confirmatory factor analysis (Robitail 2007). The Kids-CAT (Computer Adaptive Test) is a version developed in collaboration with the US (United States) PROMIS (Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) Pediatric Project. (Ravens-Sieberer 2014).  Here we report testing in any study that included English language partipants.  Much of the KIDSCREEN psychometric testing has been done in other languages, particularly German and Spanish.

There is close cooperation with the DISABKIDS project, which is also funded by the European Union. In close cooperation with the sister project KIDSCREEN, the DISABKIDS project developed disease-specific questionnaires to record the health-related quality of life of children and adolescents aged 4 to 7 and 8 to 16 years with a chronic disease and/or disability such as bronchial asthma, infantile cerebral palsy, diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, juvenile arthritis, cystic fibrosis, neurodermatitis and obesity.

Four versions: KIDSCREEN-52, KIDSCREEN-27, KIDSCREEN-10, Kids-CAT (not available to public)