Comparing the Visual Analogue Scale and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children with Oral Clefts

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the performance of the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), in measuring overall health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in children with oral clefts relative to the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL™) Generic Core Scales, one of the most validated and commonly used methods to measure pediatric HRQoL. METHODS The study included a population-based sample of 307 children aged 5 to 10 years who were born in Iowa, New York, and Arkansas with non-syndromic oral clefts. Data on HRQoL were obtained using a VAS and PedsQL™ via self-administered interviews with the parents. We evaluated the correlations between the VAS and PedsQL™ total scores, and the correlations of each of these two scales with a series of child health and wellbeing indicators. RESULTS The VAS and PedsQL™ scores were well-correlated (r = 0.67). There were no prominent differences between the correlations of VAS and PedsQL™ with the selected indicators of child health and wellbeing; differences in correlations were less than 0.1. Differences in HRQoL by cleft type were more pronounced on the PedsQL™. CONCLUSIONS Our study finds the VAS to perform relatively well in measuring overall HRQoL among children with oral clefts. The VAS may be useful as a screening tool to identify children with oral clefts at risk of low HRQoL for referral into more comprehensive evaluations and for measuring average HRQoL across a sample of children.