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Objective: To identify determinants of good Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in school going adolescents., Methods: This Cross-sectional study was conducted in public and private schools in Lucknow, Northern India after obtaining institutional ethical clearance. Children aged 10 to 19 years were included after obtaining parental written informed consent. HRQoL was assessed using culturally appropriate WHOQOL-BREF version., Results: From 1900 schools in Lucknow, 10 public and 10 private schools were selected. Within schools, random selection of the subjects was done. Dropout rate was 7.2% (525/566). Mean age of participants was 14.04 ± 2.09 years, of which 52.4% (275/525) were boys and 48.5% (255/525) were from private schools. Good HRQoL was a score ≥83, which corresponded to third quartile, and 33.7% and 16.6% of subjects, from private and public schools, respectively, fell in this category (p-value <0.0001). Determinants of good HRQoL on multivariate analysis were age <14 years (OR: 2.11, 95%CI 1.39-3.02, p < 0.0001) and studying in private school (OR = 2.04, 95%CI 1.18-3.51, p < 0.0001)., Conclusions: Younger adolescent age and enrolment in private schools are determinants of good HRQoL in school-going adolescents. Further research is needed to identify measures to improve HRQoL among older adolescents and those studying in public schools.

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to determine the degree of concordance between the self-report and the parent's proxy report of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in school-going adolescents using the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF instrument in India., Methods: Twenty schools were purposively selected out of the 1900 schools in Lucknow, India. About 5% adolescents (between 10-19 years) per school were randomly selected by lottery system. Subjects, whose parents consented for child's participation, completed the WHOQOL-BREF self-report and their parents filled the WHOQOL-BREF proxy-report for adolescent's HRQoL. Degree of concordance and association were assessed using Cohen's κ and Spearman's correlation, respectively., Results: Five hundred fifteen adolescents (mean age=14 years with a standard deviation of ± 2 years; 48.2% females) were included. κ Statistic values ranged from fair to moderate for all facets and dimensions of HRQoL between adolescent and parent report (κ=0.31-0.58, P<.01). There were moderate to very strong correlations between adolescent self and parent proxy report (r=0.62-0.81, P<.01) which declined with age of adolescent. The mother's scores correlated best in psychological dimension (r=0.81-0.88, P<.01) while that of father correlated best in environment dimension (r=0.81-0.79, P<.01), irrespective of child's gender., Conclusion: Our study illustrated that fair to moderate agreement existed between parent proxy and subject's self-report for adolescent's HRQoL. That may be an indicator for suitability of parent's proxy report in certain dimensions, if a child is unavailable or unable to respond. However, further research may provide new insights into the determinants of concordance between subject self and parent proxy report of adolescent HRQoL., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)