The pediatric rheumatology quality of life scale: validation of the English version in a US cohort of juvenile idiopathic arthritis

BACKGROUND This study aims to validate the English version of the Pediatric Rheumatology Quality of Life Scale (PRQL), a concise Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) measure, in a US cohort of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). METHODS The PRQL is a 10-item HRQoL measure with two subscales: physical health and psychological health. The original version of this measure was validated using an Italian-speaking cohort of 472 JIA patients and 796 healthy controls and found to have acceptable psychometric properties. The English language version has not been validated in a US pediatric population. The English PRQL was administered to 161 JIA subjects from a US Rheumatology clinic. We assessed the reliability (internal consistency and test-retest) and validity (convergent, discriminative, and criterion) of the PRQL. RESULTS The English PRQL was feasible to administer and demonstrated good psychometric properties. Cronbach alpha (reliability) coefficients ranged from 0.72 to 0.81. Factor analysis yielded the existing subscales. The PRQL total and subscales were found to have moderate correlations with other HRQoL instruments, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) generic core scale and the PedsQL rheumatology. The PRQL discriminated between subjects with active versus inactive disease and was responsive to an improvement or worsening in disease activity over time. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that the English version of the instrument is suitable for use in JIA patients in the US. This tool provides a relatively easy method to integrate at least one patient-reported outcome into routine clinical or research assessment.