The impact of childhood acute rotavirus gastroenteritis on the parents’ quality of life: prospective observational study in European primary care medical practices

Abstract

BackgroundRotavirus (RV) is the commonest cause of acute gastroenteritis in infants and young children worldwide. A Quality of Life study was conducted in primary care in three European countries as part of a larger epidemiological study (SPRIK) to investigate the impact of paediatric rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE) on affected children and their parents.MethodsA self-administered questionnaire was linguistically validated in Spanish, Italian and Polish. The questionnaire was included in an observational multicentre prospective study of 302 children aged <5 years presenting to a general practitioner or paediatrician for RVGE at centres in Spain, Italy or Poland. RV infection was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing (n = 264). The questionnaire was validated and used to assess the emotional impact of paediatric RVGE on the parents.ResultsQuestionnaire responses showed that acute RVGE in a child adversely affects the parents’ daily life as well as the child. Parents of children with RVGE experience worry, distress and impact on their daily activities. RVGE of greater clinical severity (assessed by the Vesikari scale) was associated with higher parental worries due to symptoms and greater changes in the child’s behaviour, and a trend to higher impact on parents’ daily activities and higher parental distress, together with a higher score on the symptom severity scale of the questionnaire.ConclusionsParents of a child with acute RVGE presenting to primary care experience worry, distress and disruptions to daily life as a result of the child’s illness. Prevention of this disease through prophylactic vaccination will improve the daily lives of parents and children.

Rotavirus infection

“…In addition, few studies have used multiple assessments to measure the effect of an acute illness on QOL for the entire episode, as most studies assess HRQOL only at presentation to a health-care facility. The limited number of studies assessing the association between rotavirus illness and QOL from Europe, North America and Thailand have estimated HRQOL to range from 0.604 to 0.896 in children and 0.618 to 0.875 in parents, where 1 indicates no effect of illness 169,170 . The differences between locations might be due to variations in the tools used, the type of health-care facility available and cultural determinants regarding when children are taken to a health-care facility.…”

Assessing Patient-Reported Outcomes in Pediatric Populations With Vaccine-Preventable Infectious Diseases: A Systematic Review of the Literature (the PROCHID Study)

“…Of the studies dealing with bacterial meningitis in general, one dealt with pneumococcal and bacterial meningitis but excluded that caused by H. influenzae type B [24] and the other dealt with bacterial meningitis caused by any of the three pathogens mentioned [22]. In addition, we found four studies in rotavirus [27][28][29][30] and one in patients with varicella [31]. The five meningitis studies identified all dealt with the impact of postmeningitis sequelae on QOL.…”

“…Of all the instruments identified, only one disease-specific instrument (the Child Acute Gastroenteritis Questionnaire/Parent Acute Gastroenteritis Questionnaire for acute gastroenteritis) specifically explored domains that were relevant to children and parents separately. Of the other instruments specific to the conditions of interest, some were designed to elicit responses from parents [27,29], whereas others appear to have been primarily designed for adults and then applied in populations younger than 18 years [16,17,19]. At least one of the scales could be described as being an ad hoc, study-specific measure [27].…”

Family impact of Rotavirus Gastroenteritis in Taiwan and Vietnam: an Ethnographic Study

“…A multi-country study in Europe by Domingo at al. assessing the impact of RGE on the parents [ 21 ] described the highest impact among parents of children aged 12–23 months, mostly concerning symptoms and daily activities, with little difference among the countries.…”