Quality of Life in Children with Asthma versus Healthy Children

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Asthma is the most prevalent chronic disease in the pediatric age group. The disease affects different aspects of the children’s lives, such as physical, emotional, social and educational aspects. Thus, more focus has been on the quality of life in these patients rather than the duration of their illness in recent years.AIM:This study examined the different aspects of quality of life in asthmatic children for the first time in this geographic area.METHODS:The study was cross-sectional conducted in 2015-2016. The asthmatic group was 100 patients aged 8 to 12 admitted to the Asthma and Allergy Clinic of Ghaem Hospital (as) in Mashhad with the control group composed of 100 healthy children of the same age and gender. The standard questionnaire pedsQLTM was used for comparing the quality of life of children in the two groups. Statistical analysis was SPSS23 with P-value less than 0.05, which was statistically significant.RESULTS:In each group, 58 patients were boys, and 42 were girls. In a comparison of the quality of life of children, the asthma group with a mean total score of Peds QL 20.99 ± 12.54 compared to the healthy children with a mean total score of Peds QL of 8.8 ± 5.41 had a lower quality of life (P < 0.001). Moreover, regarding various aspects of quality of life asthma group had a lower quality of life in physical performance, emotional performance and performance in school (P < 0.001). Nonetheless, there was no significant difference between the two groups considering social function (P = 0.267). Examining the relationship between Peds QL score of patients with asthma with various variables was indicative of the fact that Peds QL scores were significantly correlated with the gender of the patients, showing better quality of life in the girls (P = 0.001).CONCLUSION:The results indicated that children with asthma have a significantly lower quality of life compared with healthy children of the same age. Also, in examining the different aspects of quality of life, these children had a lower quality of life in physical performance, emotional performance, and performance at school, and were at the level as that of healthy children only in social performance.

The Comparison of Pediatric Quality Of Life in 8 - 12-Year-Old Asthmatic Children Versus Healthy Controls

“…Overall, the results of this study were closely associated with a significant low Parallel to current findings, a vast number of previous studies have demonstrated a meaningful drop in the QoL of patients suffering from asthma at different ages. For example, Kouzegaran et al, who investigated the QoL associated with asthma in 8 -12-year-old children using the standard PedsQL questionnaire in 2019, reported asthma as a prevalent chronic disease that puts the most significant burden on the QoL of asthmatic children (14,15,24). Ultimately, after assessing different aspects and components of QoL, despite the social performance, these children were found to have the most considerable drop in physical, emotional, and academic performance (14).…”

“…For example, Kouzegaran et al, who investigated the QoL associated with asthma in 8 -12-year-old children using the standard PedsQL questionnaire in 2019, reported asthma as a prevalent chronic disease that puts the most significant burden on the QoL of asthmatic children (14,15,24). Ultimately, after assessing different aspects and components of QoL, despite the social performance, these children were found to have the most considerable drop in physical, emotional, and academic performance (14). In a meta-analysis study in Portugal, Silva et al compared the HRQoL of 1797 asthmatic children and 13266 healthy controls and observed a low total score, while the most significant operative impairments in terms of physical and social factors and psychiatric comorbidity were observed in children with asthma rather than in healthy subjects, which is consistent with the current data (25).…”

“…Parents of all student volunteers from primary schools were asked to complete certain items in their child's questionnaire. According to sampling method and referring to previous studies (14,20), the total sample size included two hundred individuals for both experimental (n = 100) and control (n = 100) groups in the present study.…”

“…Based on direct comparison of all current valuable pediatric asthma-specific HRQoL instruments, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory TM (PedsQL TM ) was employed as the most appropriate model for yielding useful indices on health and illness. The questionnaire was concerned with overall asthma-related QoL, better understanding of healthy living and having a healthy lifestyle, and disease-specific symptoms in Iranian asthmatic children (14)(15)(16)(17). Therefore, an asthma-related PedsQL proprietary test can be used for pediatric patients and parent participants.…”

Connect, Engage: Televisits for Children With Asthma During COVID-19 and After

“… 9 In general, when compared to healthy children of the same age, children with asthma, especially poorly controlled asthma, were noted to have a lower quality of life in physical performance, emotional performance, and school performance. 10 …”