The German version of the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ)and the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ)

We report the results of the cross-cultural adaptation and validation into the German language of the parent's version of two health related quality o f life instruments. The Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ) is a disease specific health instrument that measures functional ability in d aily living activities in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) . The Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ) is a generic health instrument desig ned to capture the physical and psychosocial well-being of children indepen dently, from the underlying disease. The German CHAQ was fully validated wi th 3 forward and 3 backward translations, while the CHQ has already been pu blished and therefore it was revalidated. A total of 197 subjects were enro lled: 142 patients with JIA (5% systemic onset, 13% polyarticular onset, 8% extended oligoarticular subtype, and 74% persistent oligoarticular subtype ) and 55 healthy children. The CHAQ clinically discriminated between health y, subjects and JIA patients, with the poly,articular and extended oligoart icular subtypes having a higher degree of disability, pain, and a lower ove rall wellbeing when compared to their healthy peers. Also the CHQ clinicall y discriminated between healthy subjects and JIA patients, with the polyart icular onset and extended oligoarticular subtypes having a lower physical a nd psychosocial well-being when compared to their healthy, peers. In conclusion the German versions of the CHAQ-CHQ are reliable, and valid t ools for the functional, physical and psychosocial assessment of children w ith JIA.