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BACKGROUND: Experience of common health symptoms without a clear physical or psychological cause, such as headache or dizziness, is often reported in adolescence. The present study attempted to investigate associations of self-reported subjective health complaints (SHC) with a number of sociodemographic factors of Greek adolescents. METHODS: Questionnaires were administered to a Greek nationwide random school-based sample of adolescents aged 12 to 18 years and their parents in 2003. Data from 922 adolescent-parent pairs were analyzed (response rate = 63%). Adolescents' reported subjective health complaints were assessed for their association with a number of sociodemographic factors: age, sex, type of area of residence according to level of urbanization, immigration background, parental education and employment status, family socioeconomic status and perceived quality of financial resources (PQFR). Multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the association of the aforementioned factors with subjective health complaints as the dependent variable. RESULTS: Most sociodemographic variables, apart from area of residence and immigration background, were independently associated with subjective health complaints in the univariate analyses. The multiple linear regression analysis, however, limited the factors that could predict adolescents' subjective health complaints to four (age, sex, Family Affluence Scale score and perceived quality of financial resources). Some considerations regarding parental employment status and immigration background are highlighted. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the sociodemographic components of subjective health complaints in the Greek adolescent population. The need to include adolescent-specific measures when collecting information on adolescents' social background is underlined. Identifying vulnerable adolescent populations could lead to effective health promoting and preventive interventions.

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BACKGROUND: The KIDSCREEN-52 is a worldwide instrument for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children and adolescents. The aim of this study is to assess reliability and validity of the Greek version of KIDSCREEN. METHODS: Questionnaires were collected from a representative nationwide sample of 1,194 adolescents aged from 11 to 17 years. Internal consistency reliability was determined by calculation of the Cronbach α coefficient. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in order to test the construct validity of the questionnaire. Validity was further examined by investigating the correlation of KIDSCREEN with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and its association with socioeconomic and health-related factors. RESULTS: Internal consistency reliability was accepted with a Cronbach α above 0.73 for all KIDSCREEN dimensions. CFA showed that the ten-dimensional model fitted the data well (root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.048, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.971 and goodness of fit index (GFI) = 0.965). Correlation coefficients between KIDSCREEN and SDQ dimensions were significant. Adolescents of low socioeconomic status reported lower scores in the majority of KIDSCREEN dimensions. Also, adolescents with chronic health problem had poorer quality of life concerning physical well-being and other dimensions of KIDSCREEN. CONCLUSIONS: The Greek version of KIDSCREEN-52 was found to have satisfied psychometric properties and could be suitable for assessing HRQoL in Greek adolescents.

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BACKGROUND: This study aimed at examining the relationship between parental subjective health status and adolescents' health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as well as the role of gender, socioeconomic status, presence of chronic health care needs and social support on the above interaction. METHODS: Questionnaires were administered to a Greek nation-wide random sample of adolescents (N = 1,194) aged 11-18 years and their parents (N = 973) in 2003. Adolescents' and parents' status was assessed, together with reports of socio-economic status and level of social support. Various statistical tests were used to determine the extent to which these variables were related to each other. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Parental subjective mental health status was significantly correlated with adolescents' better physical and psychological wellbeing, moods and emotions, parent-child relationships, school environment and financial resources. Parental subjective physical health status was strongly associated with more positive adolescents' self-perception. Adolescents' male gender, younger age, absence of chronic health care needs, high social support, and higher family income were positively associated with better HRQoL. CONCLUSIONS: This study reinforces the importance of parental subjective health status, along with other variables, as a significant factor for the adolescents' HRQoL.

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OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to assess the level of agreement and the magnitude of discrepancies between children and their parents, and whether these levels of agreement/discrepancy depend on the country of living, the domains of quality of life assessed, the age and gender of the children, and other background variables. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: The KIDSCREEN pilot study involved 2,526 youth-proxy pairs in seven European countries. The health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children and their parents as proxy has been assessed in parallel using a 10-dimension KIDSCREEN-52 Pilot test questionnaire. RESULTS: For the 10 dimensions, the mean difference between proxy and youth score decreases as the HRQoL level increases. Physical and cognitive domains showed the major agreement between youth and proxy measure. Social and psychological domains presented the main discrepancies. Linear regression models highlighted that the agreement was depending on the country for the 10 dimensions. Impact of age and gender on agreement were not consistent across the 10 dimensions. CONCLUSION: Agreement is higher for the girls than for the boys and for the adolescents than for children. To further explore the country effect on agreement, results need replication in representative studies.

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PURPOSE: The KIDSCREEN project aims to develop a European cross-cultural generic self-administered Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) instrument for children and adolescents. Proxy measures HRQoL should be a useful and practical alternative to assess children's HRQoL. The KIDSCREEN pilot study involved 3988 children and 2526 child-proxy pairs in seven European countries (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, and The Netherlands). The proxy instrument is based on the model developed from the children and adolescents reports. The aim of this study is to assess the psychometric properties of the proxy measure in terms of reliability and construct and external validity. METHODS: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the parent's data allows testing of the multidimensional structure of the proxy measure. Rasch analysis evaluates the scalability of each dimension. The mutltitrait-multimethod (MTMM) model assesses the trait validity through CFA. The agreement between children and proxies reports has been assessed using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). RESULTS: CFA indicates that the children's model is adequate to the parents' data. Reliability is satisfactory for every dimension (CFI = .957). For every dimension, Rasch analysis indicates that items form a unidimensional continuum. MTMM results confirm the trait validity of the instrument. Higher agreement was found for the physical well being dimension (ICC=.52) and school/cognitive functioning (ICC=.52). Adolescents showed higher agreement than the children, and girls higher than boys. Children with physical chronic health conditions showed higher agreement for several domains: physical and psychological well-being, social support, and school environment. CONCLUSIONS: Exploring different facets of validity showed satisfactory results. This new instrument provides a promising measure to further assess the relationships between youth and proxy reports.

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