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A Machine Learning Approach to Assess Differential Item Functioning of the KINDL Quality of Life Questionnaire Across Children with and Without ADHD

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Abstract

This study aimed to investigate differential item functioning (DIF) of the child and parent reports of the KINDL measure across children with and without Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The sample included 122 children with ADHD and 1086 healthy peers, alongside 127 and 1061 of their parents, respectively. The generalized partial credit model with lasso penalization, as a machine learning method, was used to assess DIF of the KINDL across the two groups. The findings showed that three out of 24 items of the child reports and seven out of 24 items of the parent reports of the KINDL exhibited DIF between children with and without ADHD. Accordingly, Iranian children with and without ADHD along with their parents perceive almost all items in the KINDL similarly. Hence, the observed difference in quality of life scores between children with and without ADHD is a real difference and not a reflection of measurement bias.

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Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to the children and their parents who generously contributed their time to fill in the questionnaires.

Funding

This work was supported by the Grant Number 94-7454 from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences Research Council. This article was extracted from Sara Javadi’s Master of Science thesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Peyman Jafari, Kamran Mehrabani-Zeinabad, Sara Javadi & Zahra Bagheri

  2. Research Center for Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Ahmad Ghanizadeh

  3. Department of Psychiatry, UCLA-Kern Psychiatry Residency Program, Kern Medical, Bakersfield, CA, USA

    Ahmad Ghanizadeh

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  1. Peyman Jafari
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  2. Kamran Mehrabani-Zeinabad
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  4. Ahmad Ghanizadeh
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  5. Zahra Bagheri
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Correspondence to Zahra Bagheri.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Children with ADHD and healthy school children participated in the study when one of the parents signed the informed consent forms.

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Jafari, P., Mehrabani-Zeinabad, K., Javadi, S. et al. A Machine Learning Approach to Assess Differential Item Functioning of the KINDL Quality of Life Questionnaire Across Children with and Without ADHD. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 53, 980–991 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01179-6

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