The Quality of Life in Short Stature Youth (QoLISSY) questionnaire measures health-related quality of life (HrQoL) in short statured children (8-18 years) from patient and parent perspectives. To minimize respondent burden when assessing HrQoL in clinical practice, a brief version of the currently available 22-item QoLISSY is needed. The dataset of the European QoLISSY study (N = 268) was divided into two subdatasets at random, one to identify the items of the brief questionnaire and the other to test the operating characteristics (reliability and validity). Concept-based construction involved the selection of three items per Quality of Life (QoL)-dimension (physical, social, emotional) according to the highest corrected item-scale correlation. Psychometric properties were inspected in terms of reliability and validity supplemented by testing item fit statistics to examine item response theory (IRT) compliance. Cronbach's alpha for the 9-item version was 0.89 for the patient- and the parent report. Pearson's correlations with the generic KIDSCREEN questionnaire were low to moderate (children: r = 0.17-0.58; parents: r = 0.12-0.56). Shorter children reported significantly poorer QoL (mean difference 15.39 points; p < 0.001) than taller children, indicating known-groups validity. Results from IRT analysis showed an acceptable fit to Masters' Partial Credit Model. The 9-item QoLISSY brief version has satisfactory operating characteristics and is an efficient alternative for use in research and practice.