Health-related quality of life among youth with type 1 diabetes or epilepsy : the psychometric properties of the Icelandic DISABKIDS Chronic Generic Module

• Main Author: Sif Ragnarsdóttir 1989-
• Other Authors: Háskólinn í Reykjavík
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Klínísk sálfræði; Meistaraprófsritgerðir; Clinical psychology; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/47719

The DISABKIDS Chronic Generic Module (DCGM-37) is a 37-item measure designed to assess and evaluate the health-related quality of life of 8-18-year-old youth with chronic diseases. Research has shown good reliability and validity, for this measure in European samples. In this study, the internal reliability, factor solution and the convergent and discriminant validity of the Icelandic version of the DCGM-37 were examined. Participants were 62 youths with either epilepsy or type 1 diabetes (41 boys and 21 girls, mean age of 12.7 years, (SD = 2.9)) and 81 parents/caregivers (10 men and 71 women, mean age of 43.7 years (SD = 6.6)). Participants completed two online measures on health-related quality of life, the DCGM-37 and the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core scale. Results from six factor analysis show each subscale is unidimensionality, with fair internal reliability (Cronbach alpha range from; self-report: .74 -.90 / proxy-report: .84 -.93). Pearson correlation suggested a good convergent validity between the DCGM-37 and the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core scale (self- report: r = 0.70, p < 0.001, proxy-report: r = 0.69, p < 0.001). Discriminant validity was evaluated with an independent sample t-test by comparing the mean difference in HRQoL across gender, age, and clinical characteristics (effect size ranged from 0.20 to 0.13). The results indicate that the psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the DCGM-37 had satisfied reliability and validity criteria. These promising findings yield support for using the measure to reliably measure health-related quality of life among youth with chronic diseases in Iceland. Keywords: The DISABKIDS Chronic Generic Module, DCGM-37, psychometric properties, health-related quality of life, type 1 diabetes, epilepsy, youth