Quality of Life of Parents Seeking Mental Health Services for Their Adolescent's Social Anxiety: Psychometric Properties of the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire-Short Form

BackgroundThe Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire Short Form (Q-LES-Q-SF) is a well-established, clinically feasible measure of quality of life concerns when assessing relatively severe clinical populations of adult patients. To what degree might the Q-LES-Q-SF facilitate identifying quality of life concerns among parents of adolescents receiving outpatient services for psychosocial concerns for which parents are often involved in service delivery, such as social anxiety?ObjectiveWe tested the Q-LES-Q-SF in a mixed-clinical/community sample of adolescents receiving a social anxiety evaluation and their parents.MethodWe examined 134 adolescents aged 14-15 years old and their parents. Parents completed self-reports on the Q-LES-Q-SF as well as self-reports on several domains relevant to understanding their mental health. Further, parents completed reports about adolescent and family functioning known to contribute to psychosocial impairments linked to adolescent social anxiety.ResultsWe observed strong internal consistency estimates for the Q-LES-Q-SF. Scores taken from the Q-LES-Q-SF demonstrated significant links with survey measures designed to assess various domains of adolescent, parent, and family psychosocial functioning. Further, scores taken from the Q-LES-Q-SF uniquely related to measures of both adolescent and parent social anxiety.ConclusionsThe findings support use of a short, clinically feasible measure (Q-LES-Q-SF) to assess quality of life among parents seeking mental health services for their adolescents. As such, the study informs future work that tests the ability of the Q-LES-Q-SF to screen for or identify parents whose quality of life may impact their involvement in the delivery of anxiety-related services to their adolescent.