Pediatricians usually have seven minutes to sit face-to-face with patients during the typical visit. It's barely enough time to perform an exam, let alone assess how a child is faring at school or at home.

Understanding how well children function emotionally and socially could help pediatricians pinpoint health problems that may go undetected otherwise. Now, University of Florida researchers have developed an efficient way for doctors to measure and interpret a child's quality of life to understand how it affects their health.

Led by I-Chan Huang, Ph.D, a UF assistant professor of Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, UF researchers established a range of scores for the Pediatrics Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) that are directly linked to clinical findings. Establishing clinically meaningful scores will allow doctors to use the results of this survey in the same way they use a blood pressure test.

Although the survey has been widely used by researchers, there was previously no way for doctors to interpret whether results were normal or red flags.

"We believe the use of this new method allows us to expand the usefulness of the pediatric quality of life survey to capture different aspects of health status," Huang said. "It's a new set of data that physicians can use in an easy way," Says UF pediatrician and study co-author Lindsay A. Thompson.

The complete article will appear in a future issue of Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and outcomes Research.

Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 4,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.

ISPOR is a nonprofit, international organization that strives to translate pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research into practice to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly, and efficiently.

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ISPOR