Few comprehensive systems are available for assessing and reporting the overall health of preschool children.
(i) To develop a multi-dimension health status classification system (HSCS) to describe pre-school (PS) children 2.5-5 years of age; (ii) to report reliability and validity of the newly developed measure.
Existing systems (Health Utilities Index, Mark 2 and 3) were adapted for application to a pre-school population. The new system was tested for acceptability, validity and reliability.
Three cohorts of children and their parents from Canada and Australia were utilized: Cohort 1 (MAC)-101 3-years old very low birthweight (VLBW,