Parents' of Children
with Hymenoptera Venom Allergy
Quality of Life Scale

Description

Parents' of Children with Hymenoptera Venom Allergy Quality of Life Scale (PoCHVAQoLS) is a tool measuring quality of life (QoL) [1] in parents of children and adolescents (up to 18 years old) with Hymenoptera venom allergy (HVA) [2], developed by authors of CHVAQoLS: Piotr Brzyski, Ewa Cichocka-Jarosz, Beata Tobiasz-Adamczyk, Grzegorz Lis, and Jacek J. Pietrzyk, and designed for use together with abovemantioned scale. The idea of the scale construction was based on previous work of these authors on QoL of parents of children and adolescents with HVA, conducted with use of adaptation of VQLQ [3] for parents of children with HVA [4,5]. The scale is a self-administered instrument, consisting of 17 items, covering 5 dimension of QoL of parents of young patients with allergy against bee or wasp venom: anxiety against stinging insects and their stings, caution - behaviours leading to decrease of risk of being stung, limitations and discomfort - the extent to which a parent of child or adolescent with HVA has to limit his activity while trying to preserve his child from being stung, and difficulties in everyday life caused by allergy of the child, support provided to the child, and feeling of safety. Three subscales: anxiety, caution and support, are build with 3 items, and two subscales: limitations and discomfort subscale and feeling of safety subscale, consist of 4 items. The scale was developed in Polish.

Methodology

Development of the HRQoL scale consists of item selection phase and validation phase. The first one is usually based on correlation matrix analysis and factor analysis (FA), which let to exclude overlapping items, and those which may contribute to scores of several latent variables measured by the scale [6]. Validation phase leads to confirmation of validity and reliability of the scale [7]. Validity is being proved by showing scales' relationhip with other tools measuring the same latent variables as the scale, and other variables which should be related to those of interest [8]. Reliabilty is confirmed by assessment of the scale's and its items' properties in terms of classical test theory (CTT) or item response theory (IRT) [9]. This methodology may be not sufficient - as concernes development phase - in case of rare diseases, when sample size demanded by FA may not be provided. The impact methodology was developed to deal with this requirements, but selecion of the items in its case is based on different item characteristics than that which is further used in the studies using the developed tool [10]. To develope PoCHVAQoLS we conducted multistage procedure in which FA was used with respect to particular item sets (called domains) to provide unidimensionality of subscales constituting the scale, and analysis of multidimansionality of the scale was conducted by indirect method using multi-trait matrix [11]. Such methodological approach required repetition of some stages of development procedure and was in details described in [12].

Psychometrics

Psychometric properties of the Polish version of the scale [1]: internal consistency of 3 of the subscales, measured with Cronbach alpha coeffcient [13], is slightly higher than 0.8 (maximum 0.84), whereas for 2 other subscales this coefficient equals 0.75. All these values are acceptable for group comparisons [14]. Reliability of the subscales was evaluated in terms of IRT in case of 4 subscales (except feeling of safety) using Mokken scaling [15]. Rho coefficient reached values ranging from 0.75 to 0.84 - slightly higher or equal than alpha coefficient for respective subscale (except anciety subscale). Homegeneity of these 5 subscales was higher than 0.53, indicating strong hierarchical relationship between all subscales' items [16].

Languages

The table below contains year of paublication of all language versions of the PoCHVAQoLS, including Polish - in which the scale was developed - as well as those the scale was cross-culturally adapted to (this includes translation of the scale and validation of translated version, or reconstruction of the scale in new language, when whole development process was applied) or information whether the process of cross-cultural adaptation is in progress:

Authors

Authors of the scale come from center leading in Poland in studies over health-related quality of life of children and adolescents with HVA (Piotr Brzyski, Beata Tobiasz-Adamczyk) and over HRQoL of elderly and patients with several cancer diseases as well as from center leading in Poland in treatment of children with HVA (Ewa Cichocka-Jarosz, Grzegorz Lis) .

Bibliography

The list below contains all published papers concerning development, validation and use of PoCHVAQoLS:

• Brzyski P., Cichocka-Jarosz E, Lis G., Tobiasz-Adamczyk B.:
  Development of Parents’ of Children with Hymenoptera Venom Allergy Quality of Life Scale (PoCHVAQoLS).
  Postep Derm Alergol 2015; 32: 143-153.
• Tobiasz-Adamczyk B, Brzyski P, Cichocka-Jarosz E. Jakość życia chorych z alergią na jad owadów [Quality of life of patients with venom allergy]. In: Nittner-Marszalska M, editor. Alergia na owady [Insect allergy]. Łódź, Mediton Ofcyna Wydawnicza, 2016. p. 105–123.
• Cichocka-Jarosz E, Brzyski P., Tarczoń I., Jedynak-Wąsowicz U., Tomasik T., Lis G.:
  Quality of Life in parents of children and adolescents after systemic sting reaction.
  Ann Agric Environ Med. DOI: 10.26444/aaem/93748.

References

1. Bowling A: Current state of art in the quality of life measurement. In Quality of Life. Edited by Carr AJ, Higginson IJ, Robinson PG. London: BMJ; 2003:1-8.
2. Brzyski P., Cichocka-Jarosz E, Lis G., Tobiasz-Adamczyk B.:
   Development of Parents’ of Children with Hymenoptera Venom Allergy Quality of Life Scale (PoCHVAQoLS).
   Postep Derm Alergol 2015; 32: 143-153.
3. Oude-Elberink JNG, de Konchy JGR, Golden DBK, Brouwer J-LP, Guyatt GH, Dubois AEJ: Development and validation of a health-related quality-of-life questionnaire in patients with yellow jacket allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2002, 109:162-170.
4. Brzyski P., Cichocka-Jarosz E., Tobiasz-Adamczyk B., Lis G., Jedynak-Wąsowicz U., Pietrzyk J.J., Ordyk B., Profus K., Lange J., Zagórska W., Kulus M., świebocka E., Kaczmarski M., Małaczyńska T., Klajna-Kraluk B., Bręborowicz A., Kycler Z.: Adaptacja kwestionariuszy jakości życia dla dzieci z alergią na jad owadów oraz dla ich rodziców. Przegląd Lekarski 2010; 67: 1237-1242.
5. Cichocka-Jarosz E., Brzyski P., Tobiasz-Adamczyk B., Lis G., Jedynak-Wąsowicz U., Pietrzyk J.J., Ordyk B., Profus K., Lange J., Zagórska W., Kulus M., świebocka E., Kaczmarski M., Małaczyńska T., Klajna-Kraluk B., Bręborowicz A., Kycler Z.: Jakość życia warunkowana stanem zdrowia dzieci z alergią na jad owadów błonkoskrzydłych leczonych VIT oraz jakość życia ich rodziców. Przegl Lek 2010; 67: 1243-1248.
6. Garson G.D.: “Factor analysis”, from Statnotes: Topics in Multivariate Analysis. http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/statnote.htm.
7. Streiner D.L., Norman G.R.: health Measurement Scales: a practical guide to their development and use. Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008.
8. DeVellis R.F.: Scale Development. Theory and Applications. Second Edition. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi 2003.
9. Prieto L., Alonso J., Lamarca R.: Classical test theory versus Rasch analysis for quality of life questionnaire reduction. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003, 1:27.
10. Juniper E.F., Guyatt G.H., Streiner D.L., King D.R.: Clinical impact versus factor analysis for quality of life questionnaire construction. J Clin Epidemiol 1997, 50:233–238.
11. Hays R., Fayers P.: Evaluating multi-item scales.InAssessing quality of life in clinical trials. Second edition. Fayers P, Hays R. (eds.): New York: Oxford Medical Publications; 2005:41–54.
12. Cichocka-Jarosz E., Brzyski P., Tobiasz-Adamczyk B., Lis G., Pietrzyk J.J.: Development of children's hymenoptera venom allergy quality of life scale (CHVAQoLS). Clinical and Translational Allergy 2013;3:25;
13. Cronbach L.J.: Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrica 1951, 16: 297-334.
14. Nunnaly J.C., Bernstein I.H.: Psychometric Theory. 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1994.
15. Molenaar W., Debets P., Sijtsma K., Hemker B.T.: MSP, a program for Mokken Scale analysis for Polytomous items, user's manual, version 3.0. Groningen: iecProgramma; 1994.
16. Loevinger J.: The technique of homogeneous tests compared with some aspects of 'scale analysis' and factor analysis. Psychol Bull 1948, 45: 507-530.