The quality of life for cancer children (QOLCC) in Taiwan (part I): reliability and construct validity by...

Part 1, the current paper describes the development and testing of a quality-of-life (QOL) assessment specifically designed for Taiwanese pediatric cancer patients (7-18 years) and their parents/caregivers. The assessment instrument was established based on a qualitative study, then refined using recognized item-analysis methods and pilot tested on a group of 25 patients. The final assessment instrument included three versions of the same instrument, a patient self-report (QOLCC-7-12, for children aged 7-12 years; QOLCC-ADO for adolescent aged 13-18 years) and a parent proxy-report (QOLCC-PAR). The final seven-subscale tool has a total of 34 items and was tested among 106 young cancer patients and 106 their parents. Psychometric properties of the measure were tested using item analysis, Cronbach's alpha, and a confirmatory factor analysis. Results suggest acceptable reliability and goodness of fit of this seven-scale measure. In order to test the factor validity of QOLCC, an independent group of 42 children with cancer participated. The results of confirmatory factor analysis shows the goodness of fit in QOLCC.