Hvidoere Smiley Faces: International diabetes quality of life assessment tool for young children

Abstract

Background: Few diabetes-specific quality of life (QOL) tools are available for young children. Objectives: To design and evaluate, a new age-specific QOL questionnaire and its associations with treatment regimens and metabolic control. Methods: Clinical, demographic data and centrally analyzed HbA1c were collected on 1133 children <11 years (girls 48%; mean ± SD age 8.0 ± 2.1 years; diabetes duration ≥1 year) from 18 centers (Europe, Japan, North America and Australia). Children completed the 10-item Smiley Faces QOL questionnaire constructed for the study, and children ≥7 years also completed the KIDSCREEN-10 Index. Results: In total, 1035 children completed the new Smiley Faces questionna..