Quality of life in children and adolescents

Health-related quality of life: Personal perception of health is proposed a s an innovating assessment alternative for making medical and therapeutic c hoices on an individual and population basis. Standardized questionnaires h ave been developed to assess health-related quality of life (HRQL). Assessment of HRQL in adolescents and children: Several approaches have bee n used. Some questionnaires assess health status in specific diseases or po pulations. More general instruments developed for the general population ar e useful for comparing between programs involving different diseases. Practical applications: We present here the criteria of quality required fo r HRQL instruments and examine the difficulties encountered when applying t hese instruments to children and adolescents. We reviewed the main general instruments in the literature as well as those specifically designed for as thmatic children. None of the self-administered questionnaires available in France are fully satisfactory for children or adolescents in terms of robu stness, sensitivity and discriminative power. The French versions of the Ch ildhood Asthma Questionnaire developed in Great Britain and the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire developed in Canada were tested in a t ranscultural validation scheme.