Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation
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Emphasis is currently being placed on the need for quality of life in cancer survivors. There is a great need to identify an appropriate tool for quality of life estimation in these linguistically and culturally different settings. ⋯ Despite cultural variations, the local Malayalam language version of the FACT-G scale was found to be reliable like the source scale and sensitive cross-culturally. The instrument makes it possible to identify domains influencing QOL and thereby may help direct interventions to them.
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Comparative Study
Validation of the German version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) in childhood cancer patients off treatment and children with epilepsy.
The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) is a relatively new instrument developed in the US to assess health-related quality of life (HRQL) in healthy and ill children and adolescents. It is quick and easy to use, suitable for assessment by children and parents and based on a modular approach with a generic measure addressing all general domains of HRQL and disease-specific modules. We report here the results of translating the original US generic core instrument and the cancer module into German and testing the German PedsQL in samples of paediatric patients who have been treated for cancer or epilepsy. ⋯ Clinical validity was confirmed by differences between the cancer and epilepsy groups in the expected direction and by the ability of the PedsQL to discriminate between subjects with different degrees of medical and psychosocial sequelae. Comparing our findings to US results, the German PedsQL seems to be equivalent to the original version. Future methodologic research should evaluate construct validity, sensitivity and responsiveness, and test the usefulness of the instrument in other clinical populations and healthy children.
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Chronic oral disadvantage, a measure of long-term decrements in oral health-related quality of life.
Few studies have investigated the relation between oral health-related quality of life (HRQL) and key demographic, socioeconomic, and oral health decrements. ⋯ A large proportion of subjects avoided certain daily activities due to oral health decrements for longer than 6 months. Recent dental visits were significantly associated with limitation of long-term progression of oral disadvantage.