Purpose: To develop a practical, efficient, and reliable pediatric global health (PGH) measure that would be useful for clinical, quality improvement, and research applications.
Methods: Using the Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) mixed-methods approach for item bank development, we identified an item pool that was well understood by children as young as age 8 years and tested its psychometric properties in an internet panel sample of 3,635 children 8-17 years old and 1,807 parents of children 5-17 years old.
Results: The final version of the PGH measure included 7 items assessing general, physical, mental, and social health. Four of these items had the same wording as the PROMIS adult global health measure. Internal consistency was 0.88 for the child-report form and 0.84 for the parent form; both had excellent test-retest reliability. The measures showed factor invariance across age categories. There was no differential item functioning by age, gender, race, or ethnicity. Because the measure includes the general health rating question, it is possible to estimate the PGH scale using this widely used single item.
Conclusions: The PROMIS PGH-7 measure is a brief and reliable 7-item measure of a child's global health.