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Exploring response shift in the quality of life of healthy adolescents over 1 year

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Abstract

Background

The assessment of child and adolescent quality of life (QoL) is increasingly incorporated into practice and research within health and social care. However, little is known about the stability of the conceptualisation of QoL in the face of normative developmental processes against which to compare changes in response to non-normative events, such as chronic illness. The present study examined the stability of the QoL construct over 1 year in a cohort of healthy community-dwelling adolescents through applying the response shift (RS) model.

Method

A cohort of 356 adolescents (M age = 14.05 years) completed the Kidscreen QoL measure on two occasions, 1 year apart. Both research-design and statistical techniques were employed to assess three types of RS: recalibration, reprioritisation and reconceptualisation.

Results

A significant recalibration of small effect size was found for three QoL domains using a then-test, which was confirmed in the domain of autonomy through statistical modelling. No evidence was found for reprioritisation or reconceptualisation RS using either analytical approach.

Conclusion

The findings support the assumption that the conceptualisation of QoL is stable during adolescence in the absence of significant health threats. However, researchers and clinicians should be aware of potential recalibration effects of some life domains.

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Notes

  1. An anonymous reviewer suggested that the covariance of domains may suggest an alternative two-factor solution loading these three domains onto a different higher-order domain. This was tested but did not provide adequate or improved fit to the data, thus the modified single-factor solution was retained.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful and constructive comments provided by an anonymous reviewer. Their helpful suggestions served to improve the final version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School for Health, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Fiona Gillison & Martyn Standage

  2. Department of Psychology, WHO Centre for the Study of Quality of Life, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Suzanne Skevington

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  1. Fiona Gillison
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Correspondence to Fiona Gillison.

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Gillison, F., Skevington, S. & Standage, M. Exploring response shift in the quality of life of healthy adolescents over 1 year. Qual Life Res 17, 997–1008 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-008-9373-y

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