Despite increasing numbers of studies considering children's HRQL, information about variables contributing to parent-child agreement levels remains limited. Authors need to consistently provide evidence for reliability and validity of measures, and design studies to systematically investigate variables that impact on levels of parent-child agreement.

This tool can be used to measure the implementation of EBP.

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Although families are offered timely information about their entitlement to benefits, financial problems are incurred by families of a child with cancer partly because legislation prevents benefits being claimed for the first 3 months of a child's illness - the time when expenses are still at their highest. Furthermore, because benefits are backdated only to the point at which the claim was made, families do not recoup all their costs. Waiving of the 84-day wait period for children undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and the introduction of weekly bridging payments while a Disability Living Allowance claim is being assessed, would ameliorate this problem and so improve the treatment experience for families.

BackgroundHealth related quality of life (HRQL) has been recognised as an important paediatric outcome measurement. One of the more promising measures to emerge in recent years is the Pediatric Quality Of Life Inventory (PedsQL™), developed in the US. Advantages of the PedsQL™ include brevity, availability of age appropriate versions and parallel forms for child and parent. This study developed a UK-English version of PedsQL™ generic module and assessed its performance in a group of UK children and their parents.MethodsPedsQL™ was translated to UK-English. The psychometric properties of the UK version were then tested following administration to 1399 children and 970 of their parents. The sample included healthy children, children diagnosed with asthma, diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease and children in remission from cancer.ResultsPsychometric properties were similar to those reported for the original PedsQL™. Internal reliability exceeded 0.70 for all proxy and self-report sub-scales. Discriminant validity was established for proxy and self-report with higher HRQL being reported for healthy children than those with health problems. Sex differences were noted on the emotional functioning subscale, with females reporting lower HRQL than males. Proxy and self-report correlation was higher for children with health problems than for healthy children.ConclusionThe UK-English version of PedsQL™ performed as well as the original PedsQL™ and is recommended for assessment of paediatric HRQL in the UK.