English publication
Fekkes,
M., Theunissen, N.C.M., Brugman, E., Veen, S., Verrips, E.G.H., Koopman,
H.M., Vogels, T., Wit, J.M., & Verloove-Vanhorick, S.P. (2000).
Development and psychometric evaluation of the TAPQOL: A health-related
quality of life instrument for 1-5-year-old children. Quality
of Life Research, 9(8), 961-972.
Abstract
The 46-item TNO-AZL Pre-school children Quality of Life (TAPQOL) questionnaire
was developed to meet the need for a reliable and valid instrument for
measuring Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in pre-school children.
HRQoL was defined as health status in 13 domains plus the emotional responses
to problems in health status. The TAPQOL has to be filled in by the parents.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric performance of
the TAPQOL.
A sample of 121 parents of preterm children completed the TAPQOL questionnaire
(response rate 88%) as well as 362 parents of children form the open population
(response rate 60%). On the base of Cronbachs alpha, item-rest correlation,
and principal component analysis, the TAPQOL scales were constructed from
the data of the preterm children sample.
The psychometric performance of these scales was evaluated for both the
preterm children sample and the open population sample. Cronbachs
alpha ranged from .66-.88 for the preterm children sample and from .26-.84
for the open population sample. The unidimensionality of the separate
scales was confirmed by principal component analysis for both the preterm
children sample and the open population sample. Pearsons correlation
coefficients between scales were on the average low. T-test analyses showed
that very preterm children and children with chronic diseases had lower
scores on the TAPQOL scales than healthy children, indicating a worse
quality of life. This study shows that the TAPQOL can be a good instrument
to measure HRQoL in pre-school children, but more research is needed to
evaluate the psychometric performance of the TAPQOL in different clinical
populations.
Keywords
health related quality of life; pre-school
children; preterm birth; quality of life instruments;