| Author: | Lau, Ka-ming |
| Title: | Quality of life of young children with developmental disabilities in Hong Kong |
| Other Title: | Quality of life of youth children with developmental disabilities in Hong Kong |
| Degree: | M.Sc. |
| Year: | 2004 |
| Subject: | Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations Children with disabilities -- China -- Hong Kong Developmentally disabled children -- China -- Hong Kong Quality of life -- China -- Hong Kong -- Case studies |
| Department: | Department of Rehabilitation Sciences |
| Pages: | 109 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Despite of the increased concern on the health related quality of life (HRQOL) of those with disabilities; little is known about the HRQOL of children with developmental disabilities in Hong Kong. One of the most important reasons is the lack of a reliable and valid instrument. The present study first aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of a newly translated HRQOL instrument, the Chinese PedsQL (Chan, Chow & Lo, 2004). The second aim was to investigate the HRQOL of Hong Kong children with developmental disabilities. One hundred and thirty-two parents of children aged two to five with typical development and 173 with developmental disabilities were recruited from 19 preschool educational settings in Hong Kong to examine children's HRQOL through the Chinese PedsQL which was originally developed from Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 Generic Core Scale (PedsQL) by Varni, Seid and Kurtin (2001). The results showed that the factor analysis, item analysis and internal consistencies were satisfactory and comparable to the original version, The four-factor solution of the original version was confirmed with each factor explained 41% to 63% of total variance. The item-difficulties level was similar in most items and ranged from .70 to .86 with SD of .19 to .26. The missing-value rate as well as the item-response distribution was also comparable to the original version. The item-scale correlations ranged from .35 to .60 and the correlations between the items to their respected summary scores were all above .40. The instrument also showed satisfactory internal consistencies. The alpha of the overall scale was to .89, the two summary scores were .78 and .86. In the comparison between children with and without developmental disabilities, those with developmental disabilities had significantly lower HRQOL scale score (76.27+-13.70 vs. 84.15+-11.27) and psychosocial health summary score (71.25+-15.64 vs. 82.46+-12.94). The major difference was found in items of the social and emotional subscales. The HRQOL of children with developmental disabilities was also analyzed in terms of their language functioning. Although the difference of HRQOL between children's language functioning was not statistical significant (F = 3.61, 3.82; p=.24, .29). Power analysis showed that a larger sample with 90 children in each group would yield a significant result in scale score and psychosocial health summary score reached the significance level alpha .0167 and power .80. In terms of motor functioning, since there were very few children with motor deficit in our sample (less than 10%) further statistical analyses on these data were not performed. The results reflected the parent perception of their children's impairment which in turn is linked to their expectation of rehabilitation programs. Pediatric rehabilitation of developmental disabilities should focus not only on physical, but also on social, psychological areas. Support services on language, social skills development as well as psychological wellbeing should form a key component of rehabilitation. While the results provide information about the HRQOL of young children with developmental disabilities, there is a need to examine how different types of disabilities may impact HRQOL in children of different ages in future studies. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
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| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b18002833.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 2.98 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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