A global measure of child health-related quality of life: Reliability and validity of the Child Health and Illness Profile - Child Edition (CHIP-CE) global score

As the treatment of children with medical and psychiatric disorders becomes increasingly reliant on pharmacological agents, it has become critical to assess the overall effects of these interventions on the health and well being of the children. The Child Health and Illness Profile - Child Edition (CHIP-CE) is a validated health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measure with five core domains: Satisfaction, Comfort, Resilience, Risk Avoidance and Achievement. The domain scores are valuable for identifying the area(s) of HRQoL in which children are most affected by an illness and its treatment. For some purposes, however, it would be desirable to measure overall HRQoL, as no single domain score effectively describes the whole child. A global score encompassing all domains could provide such a measure of HRQoL and could be an efficient outcome for evaluating the overall effect of an intervention. This article presents the development and validation of a global score for the CHEP-CE based on parents' reports. The investigations demonstrated that the CHIP-CE global score is a reliable measure of children's HRQoL. Tests of validity supported the use of the CHIP-CE global score, indicating that it is an additional tool to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of interventions in groups of children.