The Survey of the Quality of Life of Adolescent with Cleft Lip and Palate

Children and adolescents with cleft lip and / or palate (CL/P) need the long-term medical and rehabilitation services. They need services for solving problems related to their quality of life that was influenced by clefts. The aim of this study was to translate the quality of life adolescent cleft questionnaire and to assess its reliability and validity among Persian adolescents with cleft lip and / or palate.

In this descriptive-analytic study, 31 Persian – speaking adolescents with CL/P at the age range of 16 to 24 years and 31 age and sex matched healty adolescents, were participated. In this study the quality of life adolescent cleft (QoLAdoCleft) questionnaire was used. The QoLAdoCleft questionnaire was translated to Persian language and re-translated to English by two translators (forward/backward translation). The content validity and face validity were conducted.  Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha were assessed for test-retest reliability and internal consistency, respectively.

The face validity of the quality of life adolescent cleft questionnaire and its content validity was good (CVI=0.74). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.95 that indicating good internal consistency, and ICC= 0.98 showed good test-retest reliability. There were statistically significant differeces between adolescents with clefts and healty adolescents in total scors of the QoLAdoCleft questionnaire (P= 0.001)

The comparison of the scores between study groups showed that the quality of life of adolescent with clefts was different from that of healty adolescents. The Persian version of the quality life of adolescent cleft questionnaire has acceptable validity and reliability.