A Comparison of Health-Related Quality of Life and Informant Perspectives in Symptoms Reporting Among Children with Functional and Organic Gastrointestinal Disorders

Scant research exists regarding the nature of variance in overall level of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) and parent-child informant perspectives of HRQOL specific to children with functional and organic gastrointestinal (GI) disorders and across child ages. Also, a trend has emerged for using discrepancies of informant perspectives to make predictions regarding pediatric chronic illness, but this approach has yet to be applied to children with GI disorders. The current study investigated generic HRQOL and informant discrepancies in generic HRQOL among children (N = 548) from nine hospitals across the U.S. with functional or organic GI disorder types. HRQOL was measured using child self-reports and parent proxy-reports from the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory? 4.0 Generic Core Scales (PedsQL?). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC?s) of parent-child agreement for each age group (5-7 years, 8-12 years, and 13-18 years), and age by GI disorder type were calculated. In addition, item-level analyses of dyadic parent-child informant discrepancies were calculated for use in prediction of specific GI disorders and GI disorder types.

Children with organic GI disorders were found to have higher HRQOL than children with functional GI disorders. ICC?s revealed moderate to high parent-child agreement for HRQOL ratings across age groups and age group by GI disorder type, in addition to similar agreement between GI disorder types. An interesting trend was revealed among age groups. Children ages 8-12 years showed consistently highest agreement across and within GI disorders types above that of children ages 5-7 years and youth ages 13-18 years. Item level analyses of discrepancies revealed a greater likelihood of higher discrepancy scores for children with functional GI disorders than organic GI disorders. These findings provide insight into trends with regard to parent-child informant reports and notable differences in HRQOL between GI disorder types.