Factor structure of the child health questionnaire-parent form in pediatric populations

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Psychometrics
• Child Psychology

Background:

• The Child Health Questionnaire-Parent Form 50 (CHQ-PF-50) is a widely used tool for assessing child health.
• Understanding its psychometric properties in diverse pediatric populations is crucial for accurate health assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To perform exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on the CHQ-PF-50.
• To evaluate the construct validity of the CHQ-PF-50 in children with chronic conditions and healthy children.

Main Methods:

• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on data from 329 children with chronic conditions and 332 healthy children.
• Structural equation modeling was used for second-order CFA to identify physical and psychosocial health factors.

Main Results:

• Exploratory factor analysis yielded different factor structures for children with chronic conditions (27 items, 7 factors) and healthy children (28 items, 8 factors).
• Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit for both groups but revealed distinct models, indicating non-equivalent measurement across groups.
• Secondary factors of physical and psychosocial health were identified.

Conclusions:

• The CHQ-PF-50 demonstrates construct validity for physical and psychosocial health in both pediatric groups.
• The differing factor solutions suggest the CHQ-PF-50 may not measure the same domains equivalently across children with and without chronic conditions.
• These findings have implications for the application and interpretation of CHQ-PF-50 data in clinical and research settings.