[Validation of an instrument to measure health-related quality of life in Chilean children and adolescents].

BACKGROUND: KIDSCREEN-52 is an instrument to assess health related quality of life in children and adolescents.

AIM: To culturally adapt and validate the KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire in Chileans.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Two independent translations from the English Spanish language were conciliated and retranslated to English. The conciliated version was tested during a cognitive interview to adolescents of different socioeconomic levels. The final version was validated in 7,910 school attending adolescents.

RESULTS: In the cross-cultural adaptation, 50 of the 52 items presented low or medium levels of difficulty and a high semantic equivalence. Distribution according to gender, grades and types of schools was similar to the sample. Single ages were not affected by sex distribution. The Confirmatory Factor Analyses were: X² (1229) = 20996.7, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .045 and Comparative Fit Index = .96. The instrument had a Cronbach's alpha of .93. The domains had scores over 0.70 points, with the exception of the "Selfperception" domain, with a score of 0.62.

CONCLUSIONS: The Chilean version of KIDSCREEN-52 is culturally appropriate and semantically equivalent in its English and Spanish versions (from Spain). Its reliability and validity were adequate.