Final Validation of the Quality of Life after Brain Injury for Children and Adolescents (QOLIBRI-KID/ADO) Questionnaire

Abstract

Until recently, no disease-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire existed for pediatric traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). In this revalidation study, the psychometric properties and the validity of the 35-item QOLIBRI-KID/ADO questionnaire in its final German version were examined in 300 children and adolescents. It is the first self-reported TBI-specific tool for measuring pediatric HRQoL in individuals aged between 8 and 17 years. The six-factor model fits the data adequately. The questionnaire’s internal consistency was excellent for the total score and satisfactory to excellent for the scale scores. Intraclass correlations indicated good test–retest reliability, and the measure’s construct validity was supported by the overlap between the QOLBRI-KID/ADO and the PedsQL, which measures generic HRQoL. The discriminant validity tests showed that older children and girls reported a significantly lower HRQoL than comparison groups, and this was also true of children who were anxious or depressed, or who suffered from post-concussion symptoms, replicating the results of the questionnaire’s first developmental study. Our results suggest that the QOLIBRI-KID/ADO is a reliable and valid multidimensional tool that can be used together with the adult version in clinical contexts and research to measure disease-specific HRQoL after pediatric TBI throughout a person’s life. This may help improve care, treatment, daily functioning, and HRQoL after TBI.

Reference Values for the Adolescent Post Version of the Postconcussion Symptom Inventory from the German General Population

“…• Two age-adjusted versions, PCSI-SR8 (for ages [8][9][10][11][12] and PCSI-SR13 (for ages [13][14][15][16][17][18], have recently been translated and validated in German and have been shown to demonstrate good psychometric properties and to be comparable to the original English versions.…”

“…Further details on the study description, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and recruitment procedures can be found elsewhere [13]. A total of N = 234 adolescents after TBI were included in the comparative analyses (see Supplementary Figure S1).…”