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PROMIS® Parent Proxy Report Scales for children ages 5–7 years: an item response theory analysis of differential item functioning across age groups

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Abstract

Objective

The objective of the present study is to describe the extension of the National Institutes of Health Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) pediatric parent proxy-report item banks for parents of children ages 5–7 years, and to investigate differential item functioning (DIF) between the data obtained from parents of 5–7-year-old children with the data obtained from parents of 8–17 year-old children in the original construction of the scales.

Methods

Item response theory (IRT) analyses of DIF were conducted comparing data from the 5–7 age group with data from the established scales for ages 8–17 across 5 generic health domains (physical functioning, pain, fatigue, emotional health, and social health) and asthma.

Results

IRT DIF analyses revealed that the majority of the items functioned similarly with responses from parents of younger and older children. A small number of items were removed from the item bank for younger children, and a few items that exhibited statistical DIF were retained in the pools with the caveat that they should not be used in studies that involve comparisons of younger children with older children.

Conclusions

The study confirms that most of the items in the PROMIS parent proxy-report item banks can be used with parents of children ages 5–7. It is anticipated that these new scales will have application for younger pediatric populations when pediatric self-report is not feasible.

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Abbreviations

PROMIS:

Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System

FDA:

Food and drug administration

HRQOL:

Health-related quality of life

NIH:

National institute of health

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, Grant U01AR052181. Information on the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) can be found at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/ and http://www.nihPROMIS.org.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    James W. Varni

  2. Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843-3137, USA

    James W. Varni

  3. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    David Thissen, Yang Liu, Brooke Magnus & Hally Quinn

  4. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA

    Brian D. Stucky

  5. Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Debra E. Irwin

  6. Division of Rheumatology, Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Esi Morgan DeWitt

  7. Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jin-Shei Lai

  8. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Dagmar Amtmann

  9. Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Heather E. Gross & Darren A. DeWalt

Authors
  1. James W. Varni
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  2. David Thissen
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  3. Brian D. Stucky
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  4. Yang Liu
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  5. Brooke Magnus
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  6. Hally Quinn
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  7. Debra E. Irwin
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  8. Esi Morgan DeWitt
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  9. Jin-Shei Lai
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  10. Dagmar Amtmann
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  11. Heather E. Gross
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  12. Darren A. DeWalt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to James W. Varni.

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Varni, J.W., Thissen, D., Stucky, B.D. et al. PROMIS® Parent Proxy Report Scales for children ages 5–7 years: an item response theory analysis of differential item functioning across age groups. Qual Life Res 23, 349–361 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0439-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0439-0

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