Psychometric properties of the French Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL™ 4.0) generic core scales

The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 (PedsQL (TM) 4.0) is an instrument with an international application designed to measure children's health-related quality of life in four dimensions. The original generic version of this instrument has been translated and linguistically validated in French by Mapi Research Institute. This article presents the psychometric properties of the French generic instrument. The questionnaire was completed twice by 185 children, aged 6-13 years, in their classroom, during a lively session run by their schoolteacher. Their parents completed the questionnaire at home on the same days. The statistical analyses showed few missing data (<2%), no floor effect and minimum to moderate ceiling effects (ranging from 3.4 to 38.3%), acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficients greater than 0.60), moderate to good reproducibility according to dimensions (with intraclass correlation coefficients from 0.50 to 0.66), lower "emotional functioning" score in girls than boys and an acceptable, unstable but better child/parent agreement at the second point. The psychometric properties of the French version of the PedsQL (TM) 4.0 appear to be acceptable after a critical analysis of all psychometric properties. The use of PedsQL (TM) 4.0 in the school system underlines the particular conditions of filling-in: self-administration in class with the supervision and help of the schoolteacher. The limit of this study necessitates further work in the French general population to determine reference values. (C) 2009 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.