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Koopman, H.M., Theunissen, N.C.M., Kamphuis, R.P., Zwinderman, A.H., Vogels, A.G.C., Verrips, G.H., Verloove-Vanhorick, S.P., & Wit, J.M. (2001). The DUX-25: a questionnaire for measuring health-related quality of life of children with a chronic disease. Submitted.

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Abstract

To meet the need for a research instrument to measure health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of school-aged children (5-16), the DUX-25 (short form of the DUCATQOL=Dutch Children AZL/TNO Questionnaire Quality Of Life) was developed. The DUX-25 is a generic self-report HRQoL questionnaire. HRQoL was defined as the affective evaluation of children of various aspects of their daily functioning. The items of the DUS-25 (using a five-point Likert scale) cover four domains: physical, emotional, social and home functioning. In a three-item supplement, children were asked for a judgement concerning their health, general well-being and appraisal of the questionnaire.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric performance of the DUX-25 in healthy children and in children with various chronic conditions. After a pilot study with 84 children with a chronic disease, the psychometric characteristics and the feasibility of the DUX-25 were examined in a reference sample of 1092 healthy children (8 to 12 years). In further studies reliability and discriminative validity were evaluated by comparing HRQoL of children with various chronic conditions to this reference sample.
The questions appeared to be very easy to understand and were completed within 5 minutes. The DUX-25 proved to be internally consistent and reproducible. The four sub-scales (physical, emotional, social and home functioning) showed acceptable reliability coefficients. Factor analysis supported the preconceived scale structure. The instrument makes it possible to measure the affective appraisal of daily functioning of children with a chronic condition in a systematic, reliable and valid way. On average children with a chronic condition reported a lower HRQoL than the reference group of healthy children. Moreover the DUX-25 discriminated between the effects of various chronic conditions on the HRQoL domains of the children.

Keywords

children; health related quality of life; chronic disease; questionnaire;

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Last updated on 12 February, 2015.