Psychometric properties of Turkish pediatric quality of life inventory infant scales in 13-24 months old infants

Aim: The PedsQL Infant Scales 13-24 months form, which evaluates the physical and psychosocial conditions of infants between 13-24 months, consists of 5 factors: Physical functioning, physical symptoms, emotional functioning, social functioning, cognitive functioning and is used in different sample groups in the literature. It is a general quality of life scale with proven validity and reliability. The aim of this study is to evaluate the applicability, internal consistency and construct validity of the PedsQL 13-24 months Turkish form and to conduct a Turkish validity and reliability study. Method: The sample of our cross-sectional study consists of 224 infants aged 13-24 months with a mean age of 19.2 (±4.6) months and their parents, who applied to Karadeniz Technical University Pediatrics and Child-Adolescent Psychiatry outpatient clinics. Babies were evaluated in 3 groups as healthy, acute and chronic case groups according to their disease status and duration. Sociodemographic data form, PedsQL infant 13-24 months form, and SF-36 quality of life scale, which evaluates the quality of life of parents of infants, were used as data collection tools. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis and explatory factor analysis method, with Cronbach Alpha and item total correlation values when the Cronbach Alpha item was deleted, and the construct validity of the PedsQL 13-24 months form, by comparing the mean scores of the healthy, acute and chronic case groups with the group methods with known validity. Results: When the reliability findings were examined, the Cronbach Alpha value was found to be 0,939. Cronbach's Alpha values for the physical functioning, physical symptoms, emotional functioning, social functioning, cognitive functioning subscales were determined as 0,884, 0,836, 0,879, 0,808 and 0,899, respectively. Within the scope of validity, 66,93 % of the total variance with eigenvalue statistics greater than 1 and 10 explaining factors were obtained in the factor analysis performed to evaluate the construct validity. Statistical analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied by sticking to the 5-factor structure, which is the factor structure in the original scale. It was determined that the PedsQL scores of the chronic disease group were generally lower than those of the healthy and acute disease group, and the PedsQL scores of the acute disease group were lower than those of the healthy group. It was found that there was a low-moderate, significant correlation between the PedsQL scores of the infants in our sample and the SF-36 scale scores of the infants' parents. It was observed that the SF-36 quality of life emotional role difficulty dimension of the parents of the babies in the acute and chronic case groups was significantly lower than the healthy group. Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate the validity and reliability of the 13-24 month-old infants' quality of life scale in Turkey. The findings of our study provided clear evidence that the PedsQL infant scales 13-24 months form is valid and reliable. Keywords: Infant scales, health related quality of life, PedsQL