CHP PhD Confirmation Seminar - Rachel O'Loughlin
PhD Confirmation Seminar: Understanding Value in Children’s Healthcare: the role of health-related quality of life.
Presenter: Rachel O’Loughlin
Supervisors: A/Prof Kim Dalziel; Prof Harriet Hiscock; Prof Nancy Devlin
Date & Time: Tuesday 14th September, 2021. 9:00-10:00am
Via Zoom: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/84414374784?pwd=UjR4eHdpZi9McnlaVUw5TUFCbm5xQT09
Password 912441
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that all children have the right to a ‘life of quality’ in a standard of living that supports their physical and mental health, prompting more recent arguments that this should be the “universal outcome towards which all our efforts regarding children should ultimately be directed.”
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a measure of a person’s thoughts and feelings about the impact of their health on different aspects of their life (e.g. physical, social, psychological). Relatively little is known of the HRQoL of children with mental health problems, especially those with comorbid physical health problems, and such information is not routinely collected. A number of methodological challenges exist, including a conceptual overlap between ‘mental health’ and ‘HRQoL’; and limited evidence of the validity and reliability of children’s HRQoL measures.
This PhD aims to generate information relevant to health policy, clinical decision-making, and patient outcomes research, by (1) examining the HRQoL of Australian children with mental and physical health problems in a nationally-representative longitudinal sample; (2) providing the first evidence in international literature of the relative performance of a range of children’s HRQoL measures within a single sample of children with mental health difficulties; and (3) examining different views on how this information might add value to children’s healthcare in Australia.