Psychometric performance of the Chichewa versions of the EQ-5D-Y-3L and EQ-5D-Y-5L among healthy and sick children and adolescents in Malawi

• Published in: Journal of patient-reported outcomes 2023-03, Vol.7 (1), p.22-14, Article 22
• Main Authors: Ngwira, Lucky G., Maheswaran, Hendramoorthy, Verstraete, Janine, Petrou, Stavros, Niessen, Louis, Smith, Sarah C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Child; Childhood; COVID-19; EQ-5D-Y; EQ-5D-Y-5L; Health Status; Health-related quality of life; HRQoL; Humans; Malawi; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Missing data; Psychometrics - methods; Quality of Life; Quality of Life Research; Quantitative psychology; Reproducibility of Results; Teenagers; Translation; Validity
• ISSN: 2509-8020; 2509-8020
• DOI: 10.1186/s41687-023-00560-4

Objectives The EuroQol Group has developed an extended version of the EQ-5D-Y-3L with five response levels for each of its five dimensions (EQ-5D-Y-5L). The psychometric performance has been reported in several studies for the EQ-5D-Y-3L but not for the EQ-5D-Y-5L. This study aimed to psychometrically evaluate the EQ-5D-Y-3L and EQ-5D-Y-5L Chichewa (Malawi) versions. Methods The EQ-5D-Y-3L, EQ-5D-Y-5L and PedsQL™ 4.0 Chichewa versions were administered to children and adolescents aged 8–17 years in Blantyre, Malawi. Both of the EQ-5D-Y versions were evaluated for missing data, floor/ceiling effects, and validity (convergent, discriminant, known-group and empirical). Results A total of 289 participants (95 healthy, and 194 chronic and acute) self-completed the questionnaires. There was little problem with missing data ( 0.05) with respect to gender and age, but not for school grade ( p