ASSESSING HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN CHRONICALLY ILL CHILDREN WITH THE GERMAN KINDL - FIRST PSYCHOMETRIC AND CONTENT ANALYTICAL RESULTS

Health-related quality of life is increasingly being considered as a r elevant end-point and outcome criterion in evaluating the effects of m edical treatment. While in adults quality of life instruments have bee n developed in terms of generic as well as disease-specific measures, quality of life assessment and children is a relatively new area. The current paper describes the application of a German generic quality of life instrument for children (the KINDL) in a group of 45 chronically ill children suffering from diabetes or asthma in comparison to 45 ag e- and gender-matched healthy children. The results of psychometric te sting in these populations showed that the German KINDL is a reliable, valid and practical instrument to assess the health-related quality o f life of children which should be supplemented by disease-specific mo dules and needs to be further tested in clinical populations. Qual. Li fe Res. 7:399-407 (C) 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers