OBJECTIVES: The aim of this project was to evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of the UK adolescent and adult population using the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory Questionnaire (PedsQL).

METHODS: An online version of the PedsQL 4.0 was administered to collect information on UK individuals’ previous month’s HRQoL. The PedsQL 4.0 is an HRQoL self-assessment instrument which encompasses 23 questions divided into four scales: ‘Physical functioning’ (eight items), ‘Emotional functioning’ (five items), ‘Social functioning’ (five items), and ‘School/Work functioning’ (five items). All questions include five answers measured on the Likert psychometric scale: ‘Never’ (0), ‘Almost never’ (1), ‘Sometimes’ (2), ‘Often’ (3), and ‘Almost always’ (4). Each answer is then reversed scored and linearly transformed on a 0-100 scale (‘0’=100; ‘1’=75; ‘2’=50; ‘3’=25; and ‘4’=0).

A psychosocial health scale score was calculated by adding up the items of the ‘Emotional’, ‘Social’ and ‘School/Work’ functioning scales and dividing them by the number of items answered. The total PedsQL score was calculated as the sum of all items divided by the number of items answered on all scales. Higher scores on the PedsQL indicate better reported HRQoL.

RESULTS: 92 UK individuals (64 females and 28 males) responded to the questionnaire between December 2020 and January 2021. Mean age was 45.53 (standard deviation (SD) 15.9; range 15-91).

Mean scores were 77.58 (SD 15.99) for the ‘Physical’, 63.21 (SD 19.97) for the ‘Emotional’, 85.22 (SD 14.28) for the ‘Social’, and 77.99 (SD 13.65) for the ‘School/Work’ functioning domains. The aggregated psychosocial score was 75.47 (SD 13.20), while the total PedsQL score was 76.21 (SD 12.25).

CONCLUSIONS: The HRQoL of the UK adolescent and adult population was found to be ≈76 out of 100, with emotional functioning showing worse outcomes compared to the other PedsQL domains