Development of a Parent Version of the Manchester-Minneapolis Quality of Life Survey for use by Parents and Crers of UK Children: MMQL-UK (PF).

Background Although it is now widely endorsed that children should as far as possible rate their own health related quality of life (HRQL), there are situations where proxy information on child HRQL may be useful, especially where a child is too ill or young to provide their own HRQL assessment. There is limited availability of generic HRQL scales that have a parallel child and parent version and that are reliable, valid, brief, comprehensible and suitable for use in UK populations. The aims of this study were therefore to develop and validate a parent version of the anglicised Manchester-Minneapolis Quality of Life child form (MMQL-UK (CF)) and to determine the level of association between the child and parent versions of this form. Methods This study was undertaken concurrently with the anglicisation and validation of the MMQL, a measure of HRQL developed for use with children in North America. At that time, no parent version existed, so the MMQL form for children (MMQL-UK (CF)) was used as the basis for the development of the MMQL-UK parent form (PF). The sample included a control group of healthy children and their parents and five exemplar groups; children diagnosed with asthma, diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease and their parents, children in remission from cancer and their parents and children in public care and their carers. Consistency of the MMQL-UK (PF) components were assessed by calculating Cronbach's alpha. Validation of the parent questionnaire was undertaken by comparing MMQL-UK (PF) component scores with comparable components on the proxy PedsQL™ quality of life scales, comparing MMQL-UK (PF) component scores between parents of healthy and chronic disease children and by comparison of component scores from children and their parents or carers. Reproducibility and responsiveness were assessed by retesting parents by follow-up questionnaires. Results A total of 874 children (completing MMQL-UK (CF)) and 572 parents or carers (completing MMQL-UK (PF)) took part in the study. The internal consistency of all the MMQL-UK (PF) components exceeding the accepted criterion of 0.70 and the construct validity was good with moderate correlations being evident between comparable components of the MMQL-UK (PF) and the proxy PedsQL™. Discriminant validity was demonstrated with significant differences being identified between parents of healthy children and those with chronic conditions. Intra-class correlations exceeded 0.65 for all MMQL-UK (PF) components demonstrating good reproducibility. Weak to moderate levels of responsiveness were demonstrated for all but social functioning. The MMQL-UK (PF) showed moderate parent-child correlation with the MMQL-UK (CF) for all components. The best correlations were seen for those components measuring the same construct (Pearson's r ranged from 0.31 to 0.61, p < 0.01 for equivalent components). Conclusion The MMQL-UK (PF) showed moderate to good correlations with the MMQL-UK (CF) component scores. The MMQL-UK (PF) will be of use when comparing child and parent/carer perception of the impact of a child's condition on their HRQL or where the child is too ill or young to provide their own report.

'Incorrigibly Plural’: New Histories of Ulster and Northern Ireland’

Review article of Carson’s Army: The Ulster Volunteer Force, 1910–22. By Timothy Bowman. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007. 256 pp. ISBN 0719073715, £55. A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: Democratic Socialism and Sectarianism. By Aaron Edwards. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2009. xiii + 240 pp. ISBN 0719078741, £60. Catholic Belfast and Nationalist Ireland in the Era of Joe Devlin 1871–1934. By A.C. Hepburn. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008. xix +307 pp. ISBN 019929884X, £55. The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878–1960. By Olwen Purdue. University College Dublin Press, Dublin, 2009. xv + 297 pp. ISBN 978-1-906359-25-6, £24.

(Dis)located Olympic Patriots: Sporting Connections, Administrative Communications and Imperial Ether in Interwar New Zealand

During the interwar period (1919–1939), protagonists of the early New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) worked to renegotiate and improve the country's international sporting participation and involvement in the International Olympic Committee. To this end, NZOC effectively used its locally based administrators and well-placed expatriates in Britain to variously assert the organization's nascent autonomy, independence and political power, progress Antipodean athlete's causes and counter any potential doubt about the nation's peripheral position in imperial sporting dialogues. Adding to the corpus of scholarship on New Zealand's ties and tribulations with imperial Britain, both in and beyond sport (e.g. Beilharz and Cox, 2007, “Settler Capitalism Revisited,” Thesis Eleven 88: 112–124; Belich, 2001, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000, Auckland: Allen Lane; Belich, 2007, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Auckland: The Penguin Group; Coombes, 2006, Rethinking Settler Colonialism: History and Memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa, Manchester: Manchester University Press; MacLean, 2010, “New Zealand (Aotearoa),” In Routledge Companion to Sports History, edited by Steve W. Pope and John Nauright, 510–525, London: Routledge; Phillips, 1984, “Rugby, War and the Mythology of the New Zealand Male,” The New Zealand Journal of History 18 (1): 83–103; Phillips, 1987, A Man's Country: The Image of the Pakeha Male, Auckland: Penguin Books; Ryan, 2004, The Making of New Zealand Cricket, 1832–1914, London: Frank Cass; Ryan, 2005, Tackling Rugby Myths: Rugby and New Zealand Society 1854–2004, Dunedin: University of Otago Press; Ryan, 2007, “Sport in 19th-Century Aotearoa/New Zealand: Opportunities and Constraints,” In Sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand Society, edited by Chris Collins and Steve Jackson, 96–111, Auckland: Thomson), I will examine how the political actions and strategic location of three key NZOC agents (specifically, administrator Harry Amos and expatriates Arthur Porritt and Jack Lovelock) worked in their own particular ways to assert the position of the organization within the global Olympic fraternity. I argue that the efforts of Amos, Porritt and Lovelock also concomitantly served to remind Commonwealth sporting colleagues (namely Britain and Australia) that New Zealand could not be characterized as, or relegated to being, a distal, subdued or subservient colonial sporting partner. Subsequently, I contend that NZOC's development during the interwar period, and particularly the utility of expatriate agents, can be contextualized against historiographical shifts that encourage us to rethink, reimagine and rework narratives of empire, colonization, national identity, commonwealth and belonging.