Children's quality of life: A new measure and findings in children with cancer

Objectives: To present a new measure for assessing the quality of life in children and describe its application in a sample of children with cancer. Methods: The participants were a sample of 217 children with cancer. They were of both genders (108 boys, 109 girls), ranged 6-18 years of age (M = 14.93, SD = 3.75), were mostly born in Israel (76%) and included children of the major pediatric oncological diagnoses, in the major disease stages, partly on-treatment and partly off-treatment. They completed all the Children's Quality of Life questionnaire. Results: The different assessed domains form three scales: Emotional Distress, Coping with the Disease, Concern and Worry. The highest relative scores were in the domains of motivation, and positive feelings followed by body image, basic needs, and cognitive functioning. The lowest scores were in the domains of mastery and independence, pain, health worries, play, and stress. Quality of life was found to be higher for younger than for older children; for boys than for girls; and for Israeli-born than for immigrants. Further differences in quality of life were found for specific characteristics of treatments. Conclusions: The new Children's Quality of Life questionnaire is reliable and valid and enables accurate and insightful observations of children with cancer that may be helpful in designing ade quate and target-specific interventions.