HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE ASSESSMENT IN CHILDREN - A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Health related quality of life of children has only recently emerged a s a relevant topic in medicine. The present review examines 320 articl es published on the topic, grouped by chronic conditions, age range st udied, research strategies, and instruments used for of assessment of function, mood and quality of life. We focus on publication years 1993 and 1994 to describe the studies fulfilling quality criteria such as multidimensional assessment of the quality of life construct, randomiz ed study with control group and sample size over 100 persons. The revi ew shows that empirical work is scarce, and that few instruments to as sess health-related quality of life of children are available, leading us to suggest a higher priority for quality of life assessment in chi ldren in the future.