Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life Between Informants and Parent-Child Informant Report Discrepancies with Regard to Domains of Functioning Among Children with Functional and Organic Gastrointestinal Disorders

Abstract

Literature in Pediatric Health Psychology has traditionally had a focus in Health- Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) and HRQOL has been established as a standard measure to assess for functioning in children with pediatric chronic health conditions. In addition, a focus on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Disorders (GIDs) has emerged as a focus as well due to the high prevalence in children and the variety of ways they manifest. As assessment of HRQOL often includes child self-report and another informant report (e.g. parent proxy-report), a variety of previous research has taken interest in how well children and parents agree and disagree on HRQOL. Given parent-child agreement and disagreement/discrepancy has been shown to vary as related to domains of functioning, the present study assessed for levels of discrepancy as related to easily observed domains and domains less easily observed of HRQOL in a sample of children with GIDs. Findings support higher parent-child discrepancies for difficult to observe domains as compared to domains easily observed. Furthermore, additional analyses included assessment of discrepancy and average HRQOL as related to age, gender, and informant.