An observational study of patient versus parental perceptions of health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with a chronic pain condition: who should the clinician believe?

We observed clinically significant variation between pediatric chronic pain patients' self-reports and their parents' proxy-reports of their child's HRQoL. While whenever possible the pediatric chronic pain patient's own perspective should be directly solicited, equal attention and merit should be given to the parent's proxy-report of HRQoL. To do otherwise will obviate the opportunity to use any discordance as the basis for a therapeutic discussion about the contributing dynamic with in parent-child dyad.