Child and Family Factors Affecting Parent-Child Agreement on a Measure of Health-Related Quality of Life

Author

Meghan Littles, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

12-1-2020

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Fehr, Karla

Abstract

Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a global construct identifying the physical, social, and psychological effects of health. Measurement of HRQOL within pediatric care settings has the potential to identify physical, mental, and social health problems in order to provide prevention and intervention services. While measures of pediatric HRQOL have been developed to distinguish between the needs of children across health status groups, their utilization within non-clinical populations is largely under-researched. Currently, measures of HRQOL can be administered to both children and proxy reporters (i.e., caregivers) in order to gain a better understanding of the child’s functioning. However, research on parent-child HRQOL agreement indicates that reports are largely discrepant across raters and domains of functioning (e.g., social, physical). Previous research in populations with chronic health conditions has identified several parent-specific, child-specific, and family-specific factors that may influence the agreement of parent-child dyads on measures of HRQOL. However, research on these constructs produced variable results and indicate the need for more research into specific characteristics such as child gender, child age, sibling health status, and family functioning, as well as their combined impact. The current study explored the relationship between specific child and family factors and parent-child agreement in a non-clinical sample. A total of 58 children between the ages of eight and eleven years and their parents were recruited to complete an online survey in order to address this gap within the literature. A final sample size of 25 children were included in the current analyses. Results indicated that parent-child agreement for social, school, and overall psychosocial functioning was fair while overall HRQOL, emotional, and physical functioning agreement were good. The specific child and family factors included in the model were not predictive of these discrepancies but did yield a small effect size. These data suggest that children in non-clinical populations demonstrate fair-to-good agreement with their parents on measures of HRQOL and that both family factors and child demographic factors may be important in understanding discrepancies between reporters. However, these data indicate the need for further research to better understand the factors that contribute to parent-child agreement on measures of HRQOL in larger non-clinical populations.