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Generic Children's Quality of Life Measure (GCQ)
Availability
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: Generic Children's Quality of Life Measure
Classification
Supplemental: Cerebral Palsy (CP)
Short Description of Instrument

The Generic Children's Quality of Life Measure (GCQ) is used to assess perceived quality of life in children between the ages of 6 and 14 years. It has been designed to be used not only with children who have specific health or social difficulties but also with children in the general population. The GCQ is not disease-centered, symptom- oriented or problem-specific. Instead it focuses on areas that are of interest to all children such as family, peer relationships and school.
Comments/Special Instructions
The GCQ showed acceptable reliability with a Cronbach's a of .75. The quality of life score was not correlated with age or deprivation score of the are in which the children lived. There were no significant differences by gender.
Scoring

The obtained raw scores are converted to T-scores and/or percentiles (using lookup tables) so that normative comparisons can be made.
Rationale/Justification
The GCQ is suitable for a broad range of applications:
  •    as a starting point for dialogue when a child appears to have quality of life issues but has difficulty expressing or articulating these

  •    as an exploratory tool when there is concern or uncertainty about how an illness or disability or course of therapy may be affecting a child

  •    for clinical or research settings as an adjunct to medical therapy.
References
Collier J, MacKinlay D. Generic Children's Quality of Life Measure (GCQ): Hogrefe; 2000 [cited 2016 29 June]. Available from: https://www.corc.uk.net/outcome-experience-measures/generic-childrens-quality-of-life-measure/
Collier J, MacKinlay D, Phillips D. Norm values for the Generic Children's Quality of Life Measure (GCQ) from a large school-based sample. Qual Life. 2000;9(6):617-623.

 

Document last updated April 2020