Overview
The KIDSCREEN questionnaires are used to assess the subjective health and wellbeing of children and young people between the ages of eight and 18. There are three measures with a different number of items; the KIDSCREEN-10 Index, KIDSCREEN-27 and KIDSCREEN-52. There are self-report and parent/carer-report versions available. The developers recommend the measures are appropriate for use at home, in schools, hospitals and other medical settings. They can be used for screening, monitoring and evaluation purposes.
Terms of use
The KIDSCREEN questionnaires are fully open-access and free to use.
It is no longer necessary to fill out a collaboration form in order to use the KIDSCREEN questionnaires.
The KIDSCREEN Group holds the copyright to all KIDSCREEN questionnaires and their translations: KIDSCREEN-52, KIDSCREEN-27, and KIDSCREEN-10 Index as child, adolescent, and parent/proxy questionnaires and in all existing and future language versions.
Any kind of modification, summary, omission, extension, etc. of the KIDSCREEN questionnaires should be refrained from to ensure comparability of results across studies and research groups. This includes changes in the wording and organization of the questionnaire items and the accompanying text. Official translations are only possible in close cooperation with the KIDSCREEN group.
The KIDSCREEN questionnaires may only be reproduced within the permitted scope. Commercial use, distribution or transfer to third parties (sale, rental, licensing) of the KIDSCREEN questionnaires is not permitted. The KIDSCREEN group reserves the right to take legal action in such cases.
Scales / Subscales
All available versions of the KIDSCREEN-52, KIDSCREEN-27 and KIDSCREEN-10-Index questionnaires can be downloaded from their website kidscreen.org.
Suitability
The questionnaires are suitable for use with children and young people aged between eight and 18.
The questionnaires have been developed, translated and adapted into several languages, with norms available for many countries. This means they can be used with children and young people from different backgrounds and the different versions allow for meaningful cross-cultural comparisons of health-related quality of life.
The KIDSCREEN-27 has been used with adults with Trisomy 21 (Down’s syndrome), but the effectiveness of it is uncertain. (Rofail et al., 2017).
Please do get in touch at CORC@annafreud.org if you are aware of any information that may be of interest to users of the questionnaires as we may be able to update our webpage to include it.
Administration
The KIDSCREEN questionnaires can be completed at , in a classroom, and in other settings. The KIDSCREEN instruments can also be administered by telephone, face-to-face interviews, mailed questionnaires or via internet.
The three KIDSCREEN versions require different amounts of time to be completed by children and adolescents. Overall, for younger children or children and adolescents with reduced reading abilities, it will take longer to complete the questionnaire. There should be no time restriction for completion of the questionnaire.
– The KIDSCREEN-52 requires 15-20 minutes to be filled in.
– The KIDSCREEN-27 requires 10-15 minutes to be filled in.
– The KIDSCREEN-10 index version requires approximately 5 minutes to be completed.
– The parent/carer versions require approximately the same amount of time to be completed.
All information about the KIDSCREEN measures, there development ad properties as well as information on how to administer and score the measures is available in the KIDSCREEN manual available here.
Working remotely
Currently there are no digital versions of the KIDSCREEN questionnaires available. However, the developer reports that it has no concerns if you want to program and use the questionnaire yourself as a computer- or web-based questionnaire, as long as no items are changed or omitted or the order or the answer scales are changed.
For more information of working remotely with outcome measures, please read our guide here.
Scoring and interpretation
Details on how to score and interpret each of the KIDSCOPE measures are listed here - Evaluation By Hand - kidscreen.org
It is important to note that for most items, a higher score reflects higher health-related quality of life. Any items that are worded negatively must be recoded prior to analysis, so that a score of 1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 4, 3 remains 3, and so on.
Scoring can be completed by hand, or using SPSS, with syntax provided on the KIDSCREEN website.
Psychometric properties
|
Property |
Definition |
Evidence |
|
Internal consistency |
Degree to which similar items within a scale correlate with each other. |
The internal consistency of the below KIDSCREEN measures has been found to be above 0.7, which is widely considered as acceptable: 0.82 for the KIDSCREEN-10 self-report 0.78 for the KIDSCREEN-10 parent-report (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2010) 0.80 to 0.84 for the KIDSCREEN-27 subscales (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2006) 0.78 to 0.84 for the KIDSCREEN-27 subscales (Robitail et al., 2007) 0.74 to 0.88 for the KIDSCREEN-27 parent-report subscales (Ferro et al., 2021) 0.77 to 0.89 for the KIDSCREEN-52 subscales (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2005; 2008) |
|
Construct validity |
Degree to which the questionnaire actually measures the specific trait or attribute it is intended to measure. |
No information available at present. |
|
Test-retest reliability |
Degree to which the same respondents have the same score after period of time when trait shouldn't have changed. |
Test–retest reliability was measured using a value called intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). A value of 0.6 or higher was considered evidence of adequate test-retest reliability. The time period was 2 weeks. For the KIDSCREEN-10, the ICC was 0.70 for the self-report and 0.67 for the parent-report (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2010). For the KIDSCREEN-27 dimensions, the ICC ranged from 0.61 to 0.74 (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2007). For the KIDSCREEN-52 dimensions, the ICC ranged from 0.56 to 0.77 (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2007). |
|
Convergent validity |
Degree to which two measures of constructs that theoretically should be related are in fact related. |
The KIDSCREEN-10 self-report displayed strong correlation with the self-report PedsQL scales and summary measure (0.57), the CHIP satisfaction scale (0.63) and the YQOL-S perceptual scale (0.61) (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2010). There is also a strong correlation (0.56) between the EQ-5D and KIDSCREEN-10 index score (Bouwmans et al., 2013). The KIDSCREEN-10 parent-report showed moderate correlations with the self-reported PEDSQL scales and summary measure (r = 0.30), CHIP satisfaction scale (r = 0.43) and YQOL-S perceptual scale (r = 0.40). (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2010) The KIDSCREEN-27 displayed moderate to strong levels of correlation with the PedsQL scales (r = 0.44 – 0.54). (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2007). The KIDSCREEN-52 displayed moderate to strong levels of correlation with the PedsQL scales (r = 0.44 – 0.53) (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2008). It has also shown strong correlation with the KINDL for dimensions assessing similar constructs (r = 0.51 to 0.68) (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2005). |
|
Concurrent validity |
Correlation of the measure with others measuring same concept. |
Ravens-Sieberer et al. (2010) reported that correlations between the KIDSCREEN-10 score and KIDSCREEN-52 scales ranged from r = 0.24 to 0.72 for the self-report, and r = 0.27 – 0.72 for the parent-report. These range from weak to strong positive correlations. Ravens-Sieberer et al. (2007) reported that correlations between KIDSCREEN-27 scales and scales of the KIDSCREEN-52 measuring similar dimensions ranged from r = 0.63 to r = 0.96, indicating strong positive correlations. |
|
Discriminant validity |
Lack of correlation with opposite concepts. |
The more frequently children and young people experience psychosomatic health complaints as measured by the HBSC psychosomatic complaints symptom checklist, the lower their scores in all KIDSCREEN measures (r = -0.20 to -0.53) (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2006). Higher health related quality of life as measured by the KIDSCREEN-27 parent-report was related with lower severity of illness, as measured by the WHODAS 2.0. (Ferro et al., 2021). |
Translation
All versions of the KIDSCREEN questionnaires are available in many languages. There are over 50 authorised translation versions of the KIDSCREEN measures that can be accessed here.
It is also possible to create new translations following the translation process outlined here.
Useful resources
EN website - Questionnaires - kidscreen.org
References
Bouwmans, C., van der Kolk, A., Oppe, M., Schawo, S., Stolk, E., van Agthoven, M., ... & van Roijen, L. (2014). Validity and responsiveness of the EQ-5D and the KIDSCREEN-10 in children with ADHD. The European Journal of Health Economics, 15, 967-977.
Ferro, M. A., Otto, C., & Ravens-Sieberer, U. (2021). Measuring health-related quality of life in young children with physical illness: Psychometric properties of the parent-reported KIDSCREEN-27. Quality of Life Research, 1-12.
Ravens-Sieberer, U., Auquier, P., Erhart, M., Gosch, A., Rajmil, L., Bruil, J., Power, M., Duer, W., Cloetta, B., Czemy, L., Mazur, J., Czimbalmos, A., Tountas, Y., Hagquist, C., & Kilroe, J. (2007). The KIDSCREEN-27 quality of life measure for children and adolescents: psychometric results from a cross-cultural survey in 13 European countries. Quality of Life Research, 16(8), 1347-1356. doi:10.1007/s11136-007-9240-2
Ravens-Sieberer, U., Erhart, M., Rajmil, L., Herdman, M., Auquier, P., Bruil, J., Power, M., Duer, W., Abel, T., Czemy, L., Mazur, J., Czimbalmos, A., Tountas, Y., Hagquist, C., Kilroe, J., & the European KIDSCREEN Group. (2010). Reliability, construct and criterion validity of the KIDSCREEN-10 score: A short measure for children and adolescents' well-being and health-related quality of life. Quality of Life Research, 19(10), 1487-1500. doi:10.1007/s11136-010-9706-5
Ravens-Sieberer, U., Gosch, A., Erhart, M., von Rueden, U., Nickel, J., … & Waters, E. (2006). The KIDSCREEN questionnaires. Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science Publishers.
Ravens-Sieberer, U., Gosch, A., Rajmil, L., Erhart, M., Bruil, J., Duer, W., ... & Kilroe, J. (2005). KIDSCREEN-52 quality-of-life measure for children and adolescents. Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research, 5(3), 353-364.
Ravens-Sieberer, U., Gosch, A., Rajmil, L., Erhart, M., Bruil, J., … & Kilroe, J. (2008). The KIDSCREEN-52 quality of life measure for children and adolescents: psychometric results from a cross-cultural survey in 13 European countries. Value in Health, 11(4), 645-658. doi:10.1111/j.1524-4733.2007.00291.x
Robitail, S., Ravens-Sieberer, U., Simeoni, M. C., Rajmil, L., Bruil, J.,... & Kidscreen Group. (2007). Testing the structural and cross-cultural validity of the KIDSCREEN-27 quality of life questionnaire. Quality of Life Research, 16, 1335-1345.
Rofail, D., Froggatt, D., de la Torre, R., Edgin, J., Kishnani, P., Touraine, R., ... & D’Ardhuy, X. L. (2017). Health-related quality of life in individuals with Down syndrome: Results from a non-interventional longitudinal multi-national study. Advances in therapy, 34, 2058-2069.