Data from the PedsQL™ DatabaseSM were utilized to test the hypothesis that children as young as 5 years of age can reliably and validly report their HRQOL.
The SASSI authors also allege 'unsubstantiated claims of bias' by stating that a screener may validly report a higher positive rate for an ethnic group if the true prevalence rate is also higher for that group.
Existing research in pediatric obesity has established that children and adolescents are able to validly report on their quality of life, but a variety of measures have been employed [ 11- 15].
The results demonstrate that children as young as the 5 year old age subgroup can reliably and validly self-report their HRQOL when given the opportunity to do so with an age-appropriate instrument.
Recent research shows, that children as young as eight [ 50, 70] and even at the age of six years [ 44, 70, 71] can reliably and validly self-report their HRQOL status if the questionnaire is age- and cognitive-appropriate.
Evidence now available on thousands of children demonstrates that pediatric patients as young as the 5 year old age subgroup can reliably and validly self-report their HRQOL when an age-appropriate measurement instrument is utilized.
Thus, although most available HRQOL instruments only include child self-report for ages 8 and older [ 1, 2], the present findings indicate that 5, 6, and 7 year olds can reliably and validly self-report their HRQOL, comparable to older children and adolescents.
Despite the high occurrence of working memory and attention disturbances in MS patients [ 10, 11], even during the early stages of the disease [ 12], no study has specifically examined the extent to which MS patients with attention dysfunction can validly self-report their QoL.
However, investigators report that these criteria do not validly describe active labor onset for a large percentage of nulliparous women with spontaneous labor onset when traditional cervical dilation expectations are used to differentiate active from earlier labor [ 2, 3].
Our results verify that the EQ-5D-3L™ descoretive score and VAS can be utilized in the paediatric injured population for collecting HRQL data, whether self-reported or proxy reported, and that these data can be validly collected using paper-pencil, online or telephone modes of administration.
