Authors: Fiona Gillison Suzanne Skevington Martyn Standage
Publish Date: 2008/07/17
Volume: 17, Issue: 7, Pages: 997-1008
Abstract
The assessment of child and adolescent quality of life QoL is increasingly incorporated into practice and research within health and social care However little is known about the stability of the conceptualisation of QoL in the face of normative developmental processes against which to compare changes in response to nonnormative events such as chronic illness The present study examined the stability of the QoL construct over 1 year in a cohort of healthy communitydwelling adolescents through applying the response shift RS modelA cohort of 356 adolescents M age = 1405 years completed the Kidscreen QoL measure on two occasions 1 year apart Both researchdesign and statistical techniques were employed to assess three types of RS recalibration reprioritisation and reconceptualisationA significant recalibration of small effect size was found for three QoL domains using a thentest which was confirmed in the domain of autonomy through statistical modelling No evidence was found for reprioritisation or reconceptualisation RS using either analytical approachThe findings support the assumption that the conceptualisation of QoL is stable during adolescence in the absence of significant health threats However researchers and clinicians should be aware of potential recalibration effects of some life domains
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