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Using the PedsQL™ 3.0 asthma module to obtain scores comparable with those of the PROMIS pediatric asthma impact scale (PAIS)

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Abstract

Background

The National Institutes of Health’s Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) has developed several scales measuring symptoms and function for use by the clinical research community. One advantage of PROMIS is the ability to link other scales to the PROMIS metric.

Objectives

The objectives of this research are to provide evidence of validity for one of the PROMIS measures, the Pediatric Asthma Impact Scale (PAIS), and to link the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms Scale with the metric of the PAIS.

Methods

Descriptive statistics were computed describing the relationships among scores on the PAIS, the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms, Treatment, Worry, and Communication Scales, and the DISABKIDS Asthma Impact and Worry Scales for approximately 300 children ages 8–17. A novel linkage method based on item response theory (IRT), calibrated projection, was used to link scores on the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms Scale with the metric of the PAIS.

Results

The PAIS exhibited strong convergent validity with the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms Scale, and less strong relations with the other five scales. The linkage system uses scores on the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms Scale to produce relatively precise score estimates on the metric of the PAIS.

Conclusions

Results of this study provide evidence for the validity of the PAIS, and a method to use scores on the PedsQL™ Asthma Symptoms Scale to estimate scores on the metric of the PAIS, in partial fulfillment of the PROMIS goal to provide a lingua franca for health-related quality of life.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Harry A. Guess, MD, PhD to the conceptualization and operationalization of this research prior to his death. We are grateful to Li Cai for the theoretical development and implementation in software of the two-tier methods for item parameter estimation and the computation of scaled scores, and for his advice on their use in this project. This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, Grant 1U01AR052181-01, and by SBIR contract HHSN-2612007-00013C with the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Information on the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) can be found at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/ and http://www.nihpromis.org.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Varni holds the copyright and the trademark for the PedsQL™ and receives financial compensation from the Mapi Research Trust, which is a nonprofit research institute that charges distribution fees to for-profit companies that use the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, CB# 3270, Davie Hall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    David Thissen, Brian D. Stucky & Yang Liu

  2. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    James W. Varni

  3. Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    James W. Varni

  4. Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Debra E. Irwin

  5. Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Darren A. DeWalt

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  1. David Thissen
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  2. James W. Varni
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  3. Brian D. Stucky
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  4. Yang Liu
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  5. Debra E. Irwin
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  6. Darren A. DeWalt
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Correspondence to David Thissen.

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Thissen, D., Varni, J.W., Stucky, B.D. et al. Using the PedsQL™ 3.0 asthma module to obtain scores comparable with those of the PROMIS pediatric asthma impact scale (PAIS). Qual Life Res 20, 1497–1505 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-9874-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-9874-y

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