Assessment of health-related quality of life with the PedsQL 3.0 Cancer Module in Latvian paediatric oncology patients

Introduction: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessment is an essential component of paediatric oncology care.The Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 3.0 Cancer Module is widely used to evaluate disease-specific HRQoL in children aged 2-18 years.This J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f study assessed the reliability of the Latvian version of the module and examined HRQoL across age, diagnosis, and therapy intensity subgroups.Methods: A methodological, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at the Children's Clinical University Hospital (CCUH), in Riga, from February to July 2025.Patients (2-18 years) and their parents completed the PedsQL 3.0 Cancer Module (self-report and proxy-report questionnaires).Socio-demographic and clinical data were obtained from the medical records.Results: Seventy-five children and their families were included.Internal consistencies ranged from 0.28 to 0.94, with most domains demonstrating acceptable reliability.A tendency of lower internal consistency in self-reports was observed among younger patients.No significant differences emerged between self-and proxy-reports.The range of p-values for non-significant differences in patient proxy-reports was 0.076-1.000.Lower HRQoL scores were noted for procedural anxiety in the youngest cohorts, communication and worry in 8-12-year-olds, nausea and cognitive problems in adolescents.Proxy-reports showed significantly lower physical appearance scores for central nervous system tumours versus haematological malignancies.In self-reports, higher treatment intensity was associated with lower procedural anxiety scores. Conclusions:The Latvian PedsQL 3.0 Cancer Module is a reliable tool for the assessment of HRQoL in paediatric oncology patients.Subgroup differences were modest, supporting its broad applicability in clinical and research settings.