Quokka Special Issue

In June 2024, our team contributed to a special issue in Pharmacoeconomics titled ‘Advancing Measurement of Children’s Health-related Quality of Life – Evidence from the QUOKKA (QUality OF Life in Kids: Key Evidence to Strengthen Decisions in Australia) Research Program’

This special issue included nine manuscripts, six of which were led by members of the Child Health Economics team:

  1. ‘Exploring the Use of Pictorial Approaches in the Development of Paediatric Patient-Reported Outcome Instruments: A Systematic Review’, led by Dr Christine Mpundu-Kaambwa
  2. ‘Comparative Psychometric Performance of Common Generic Paediatric Health-Related Quality of Life Instrument Descriptive Systems: Results from the Australian Paediatric Multi-Instrument Comparison Study’, led by Renee Jones
  3. ‘Comparing the Psychometric Performance of Generic Paediatric Health-Related Quality of Life Instruments in Children and Adolescents with ADHD, Anxiety and/or Depression’, led by Dr Rachel O’Loughlin
  4. ‘Psychometric Performance Comparison of the Adapted versus Original Versions of the EQ-5D-Y-3L and -Y-5L in Proxy Respondents for 2- to 4-Year-Olds’, led by Alexander van Heusden
  5. ‘Psychometric Properties of Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D) Proxy Version Administered to Parents and Caregivers of Children Aged 2–4 Years Compared with Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL)’, led by Dr Xiuqin Xiong
  6. ‘The Validity of the EuroQol Health and Wellbeing Short Version (EQ-HWB-S) Instrument in Parents of Children With and Without Health Conditions’, led by Dr Cate Bailey

In the editorial reviewing and summarising the special issue, authors Wendy Ungar and Mike Herdman stated: "Altogether, the papers in this collection cover a range of topics that are critical to advancing the measurement and valuation of health in children. In particular, it is rare to see multi-instrument comparisons performed in a large and diverse population of children with and without health problems. Given the rigor with which the fieldwork and analysis were carried out, the studies provide some of the strongest evidence currently available for understanding and interpreting the comparative performance of preference-weighted instruments intended for use in children."

This special issue is a big achievement for our team as it provides important evidence on the measurement properties of commonly used pediatric health-related quality of life instruments to inform their use in economic evaluations, research studies, and clinical practice.