Project

The KIDSCREEN questionnaires are a family of instruments developed and normalized for surveying health-related quality of life (HRQoL - Health related quality of life), in children and adolescents ages 8 to 18. The questionnaires were developed simultaneously in 13 european countries with special regard to childhood concepts of health and well-beeing.

The instruments can be used for screening, monitoring and evalution in national and international european health surveys.

Three versions of the KIDSCREEN questionnaire are targeted at children, adolescents and parents. They are available in various languages and can be applied for multiple research goals.

KIDSCREEN-52 (long version) covers ten HRQoL dimensions, KIDSCREEN-27 (short version) covers five HRQoL dimensions, while the KIDSCREEN-10 Index encompasses a global HRQoL measurement.

In this fashion the questionnaires measure the quality of life from the childs point of view with regard to physical, mental and social well-beeing.

Aim of this research is to identify susceptible children based on their perceived health, to formulate recommendations for suitable interventions.

Analysis can be applied for all scales. T-values and percentiles sorted by age and sex are available for the different countries.

The finalized KIDSCREEN project was funded by the European Commission within the Fifth EU Framework Programme "Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources" (QLC-CT-2000-00751) and took place over 3 years (2001-2004).

The KIDSCREEN project is in close cooperation with the EU funded project DISABKIDS.

The sister project DISABKIDS was aimed at developing health-related quality of life instruments for children and adolescents in the age groups 4-7 and 8-16 with chronic conditions such as asthma, cerebral palsy, diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, juvenile arthritis, serious skin diseases, overweight problems and cystic fibrosis.

Both projects collaborated as closely as possible during the instrument development phases to ensure a joint methodology and a wide coverage.

The KIDSCREEN-10 is recommended by the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) as part of their standard set of outcome measures for child and youth anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.