A systematic review of generic multidimensional patient-reported outcome measures for children, part II: evaluation of psychometric performance of English-language versions in a general population

Objectives: The objectives of this systematic review were 1) to identify studies that assess the psychometric performance of the English-language version of 35 generic multidimensional patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for children and young people in general populations and evaluate their quality and 2) to summarize the psychometric properties of each PROM.

Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO were searched. The methodological quality of the articles was assessed using the COnsensus-based Standards for selection of health Measurement INstruments checklist. For each PROM, extracted evidence of content validity, construct validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, proxy reliability, responsiveness, and precision was judged against standardized reference criteria.

Results: We found no evidence for 14 PROMs. For the remaining 21 PROMs, 90 studies were identified. The methodological quality of most studies was fair. Quality was generally rated higher in more recent studies. Not reporting how missing data were handled was the most common reason for downgrading the quality. None of the 21 PROMs has had all psychometric properties evaluated; data on construct validity and internal consistency were most frequently reported.

Conclusions: Overall, consistent positive findings for at least five psychometric properties were found for Child Health and Illness Profile, Healthy Pathways, KIDSCREEN, and Multi-dimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale. None of the PROMs had been evaluated for responsiveness to detect change in general populations. Further well-designed studies with transparent reporting of methods and results are required.