Measuring Components of Children's Health Status

Marvin Eisen, John E. Ware, Cathy Donald Sherbourne, Robert H. Brook

Expert InsightsPublished 1979

Measures of physical, mental, and social components of health status were studied for children ages 0-4 (N=679) and 5-13 (N=1473). Questionnaires were completed by adult proxies in three healthy populations. Hypothesized multi-item scales were tested; reliability was estimated and preliminary attempts at validation were undertaken. Items in ten scales pertaining to mental health (anxiety, depression, positive well-being, mental health index), social health (social relations), general health ratings (current health, prior health, resistance/susceptibility to illness, general health rating index), as well as parental satisfaction with child development satisfied Likert-type and discriminant validity criteria. Because functional limitation items were endorsed for very few children, scales to measure physical health could not be tested. Almost all other scales were sufficiently reliable for group comparisons; reliability coefficients were lower in the most disadvantaged population. Interrelationships among scales and validity variables generally supported their construct validity and supported a multi-component model of children's health status.

Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web Only
  • Year: 1979
  • Pages: 43
  • Document Number: P-6218

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Eisen, Marvin, John E. Ware, Cathy Donald Sherbourne, and Robert H. Brook, Measuring Components of Children's Health Status. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1979. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P6218.html.
BibTeX RIS

This publication is part of the RAND paper series. The paper series was a product of RAND from 1948 to 2003 that captured speeches, memorials, and derivative research, usually prepared on authors' own time and meant to be the scholarly or scientific contribution of individual authors to their professional fields. Papers were less formal than reports and did not require rigorous peer review.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.