[Evaluation of the quality of life of infants and very young children: validation of a questionnaire. Multicenter European study]. / Evaluation de la qualité de vie du nourrisson et du très jeune enfant: validation d'un questionnaire. Etude multicentrique européenne.

UNLABELLED: In the last few years, evaluating quality of life in children has become possible using specific instruments; nevertheless, there is still an unsolved issue concerning the earliest ages, when the child is not able to give his/her own opinion. QUALIN, a new instrument designed to assess an infant's quality of life (between the ages of three months and three years) was developed from the study of spontaneous criteria used by parents or caregivers (paediatricians or nurses) when they think about the quality of life of a baby (preliminary survey including 800 open-ended questionnaires). PATIENTS AND METHODS: One thousand four hundred and twelve children under the age of three were included in this validation study. QUALIN questionnaire is a 34-item scale and can be completed by parents or caregivers. Two forms are available: one form is designed for children under the age of one and the other is designed for children between the ages of one and three. The QUALIN questionnaire was translated into English, Italian and Spanish, and a European multicentric validation study was conducted in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland. Data were collected with QUALIN questionnaires from children's parents and paediatricians. RESULTS: The psychometric properties of the scale are satisfactory (acceptability 90%, Cronbach's coefficient alpha over 0.75, correlations between two raters over 0.50, construct validity with principal component analysis showed emerging factors in agreement with the hypotheses linked to the questionnaire construction). The results are interesting, showing significant differences according to the health status of the children and their country of origin. CONCLUSION: The QUALIN questionnaire can be used for studies concerning the quality of life of children less than three years of age.

[Infant quality of life: criteria of parents and professionals. Development of an evaluation instrument]. / Qualité de vie du nourrisson: critères des parents et des professionnels. Elaboration d'un instrument d'évaluation.

A survey was performed using open-ended questionnaires to be completed by parents or care-givers dealing with very young children (less than 3 years old) in order to study their opinions concerning the child's quality of life. About 800 questionnaires were analyzed with a content-analysis method. Nine categories and about 40 elementary criteria were distinguished. Some criteria were widely quoted. Others appeared useful to discriminate between care givers and parents, between different situations encountered by the child, and his/her age. This information will be used to develop a young child's quality of life scale.

[Clinical data on the diagnosis of colic in infants. Survey in 2,773 infants aged 15-119 days. Groupment des pédiatres de la région de Lyon (GPRL), le Groupment lyonnais de recherche en pédiatrie ambulatoire (GLYRPA), l'association des pédiatres de la région stéphanoise (APRS) et la Formation pédiatrique grenobloise (FPG)]. / Eléments cliniques du diagnostic de coliques du nourrisson. Enquête chez 2773 nourrissons âgés de 15 à 119 jours. Groupement des pédiatres de la région de Lyon (GPRL), le Groupement lyonnais de recherche en pédiatrie ambulatoire (GLYRPA), l'association des pédiatres de la région stéphanoise (APRS) et la Formation pédiatrique grenobloise (FPG).

BACKGROUND: Crying is called "Infantile colic" when such cries are numerous, paroxystic, difficult to comfort, and without an obvious cause. METHODOLOGY: An information mailing on the study (named Encolie) and the associated methodology was distributed in April 1995 to 212 private practice pediatricians. They have included in the study all infants aged 15 to 119 days who were seen during consultation from June 12 to June 27. They filled out a two page, 32 item, epidemiological questionnaire. Question 31 asked; "following this consultation, would you call for an 'infantile colic' diagnosis for this child? Yes, no. if no, what is your diagnosis?" RESULTS: One hundred and sixty-nine private practice pediatricians out of 212 (79.7%) participated in the study, and have included 2,797 infants 2,773 infant files were analyzed. The 625 infants identified as "colic" (22.5% of all cases), differed from the 2,148 identified as "non-colic" by the following factors: average age (51.3 vs 61.3 days), birth weight (2,226 vs 3,307 g), being a first born (52.7 vs 45.1% of cases), and mother's anxiety (47.8 vs 29.1% of cases). Significant differences were observed concerning feeding behavior (slow or gluttonous feeding), digestive symptoms, and unexplained crying, always more frequent in the case of the infants identified as "colic". These infants received more drugs, and their parents were given more advice on diet and hygiene. The symptoms supporting the "infantile colic" diagnosis were derived using a statistical regression model. They included: frequent and/or unexplained crying at the time of the study, frequent and/or unexplained crying in the past, abdominal distention at the time of the clinical examination, and frequent gas emissions as indicated by parental questioning. Factors associated with this diagnosis were: young age of the child, drugs administered before the consultation, maternal anxiety, anomalies in feeding behavior, and to a lesser degree, low birth weight and mother or father atopy. CONCLUSION: Given the sample size and origin, and the rigor of both the study and the analysis, we believe that these data could be extrapolated to the usual pediatrician's patient population. This highlighting of differences between our two groups indicate the validity of this diagnosis.