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Parent–Child Agreement of Child Health-Related Quality-of-Life in Maltreated Children

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Abstract

This article examines the differences between self-reports and parent-proxy reports of pediatric health-related quality of life among families receiving child welfare services for child physical abuse and neglect. This study assesses child well-being using a pediatric health-related quality of life measure (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory; PedsQL 4.0) with parent-child dyads (N = 129). Child and parent reports are compared for total and domain score on the PedsQL. Child-reported scores are lower than parent-proxy reports on total and all domain scores. For the total score, 57 % of child reports are below the clinical cutoff for poor well-being compared with 19 % of parent proxy reports. Analyses indicate poor agreement between parent and child reports, with this disagreement associated with high parent anger and parental self-report of poor mental health. Fully assessing child health and well-being requires multiple perspectives of child well-being. Gaining information from both the child and the parent provides different but equally useful information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, UNC-Chapel Hill, 325 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3550, USA

    Paul Lanier

  2. Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Shenyang Guo, Wendy Auslander, Allison Dunnigan & Patricia L. Kohl

  3. Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Kathleen Gillespie

Authors
  1. Paul Lanier
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  2. Shenyang Guo
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  3. Wendy Auslander
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  4. Kathleen Gillespie
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  5. Allison Dunnigan
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  6. Patricia L. Kohl
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Correspondence to Paul Lanier.

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Funding Source

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development (1R01HD061454-04A1) and the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being.

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Lanier, P., Guo, S., Auslander, W. et al. Parent–Child Agreement of Child Health-Related Quality-of-Life in Maltreated Children. Child Ind Res 10, 781–795 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-016-9413-z

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