Outpatient's Department General Pediatrics, Erasmus MC-Sophia, Dr Molewaterplein 60, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Qual Life Res. 2011 Jun;20(5):779-86. doi: 10.1007/s11136-010-9806-2. Epub 2010 Dec 12.
To test the responsiveness of the Infant/Toddler Quality of Life Questionnaire (ITQOL) to five health conditions. In addition, to evaluate the impact of the child's age and gender on the ITQOL domain scores.
Observational study of 494 Dutch preschool-aged children with five clinical conditions and 410 healthy preschool children randomly sampled from the general population. The clinical conditions included neurofibromatosis type 1, wheezing illness, bronchiolitis, functional abdominal complaints, and burns. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was assessed by a mailed parent-completed ITQOL. Mean ITQOL scale scores for all conditions were compared with scores obtained from the reference sample. The effect of patient's age and gender on ITQOL scores was assessed using multi-variable regression analysis.
In all health conditions, substantially lower scores were found for several ITQOL scales. The conditions had a variable effect on the type of ITQOL domains and a different magnitude of effect. Scores for 'physical functioning', 'bodily pain', and 'general health perceptions' showed the greatest range. Parental impact scales were equally affected by all conditions. In addition to disease type, the child's age and gender had an impact on HRQoL.
The five health conditions (each with a distinct clinical profile) affected the ITQOL scales differently. These results indicate that the ITQOL is sensitive to specific characteristics and symptom expression of the childhood health conditions investigated. This insight into the sensitivity of the ITQOL to health conditions with different symptom expression may help in the interpretation of HRQoL results in future applications.
测试婴儿/学步儿生活质量问卷（ITQOL）对五种健康状况的反应能力。此外，评估儿童年龄和性别对 ITQOL 领域评分的影响。
对 494 名患有五种临床疾病的荷兰学龄前儿童和 410 名从普通人群中随机抽取的健康学龄前儿童进行观察性研究。临床疾病包括神经纤维瘤病 1 型、喘息性疾病、细支气管炎、功能性腹痛和烧伤。通过邮寄的父母完成的 ITQOL 评估健康相关生活质量（HRQoL）。将所有疾病的 ITQOL 量表平均得分与参考样本的得分进行比较。使用多变量回归分析评估患者年龄和性别对 ITQOL 评分的影响。
在所有健康状况下，几个 ITQOL 量表的得分明显较低。疾病对 ITQOL 领域的类型有不同的影响，其影响程度也不同。“身体功能”、“身体疼痛”和“一般健康感知”的评分范围最大。父母影响量表受到所有疾病的同等影响。除了疾病类型外，儿童的年龄和性别也对 HRQoL 有影响。
五种健康状况（每种疾病都有不同的临床特征）对 ITQOL 量表的影响不同。这些结果表明，ITQOL 对所研究的儿童健康状况的特定特征和症状表现具有敏感性。对 ITQOL 对具有不同症状表现的健康状况的敏感性的这种认识可能有助于在未来的应用中解释 HRQoL 结果。
