EVALUATION OF QUALITY OF LIFE OF PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS OF ASTHMATIC CHILDREN

Parents of children with asthma (asthma group) undergoing outpatient care and parents of children without asthma or asthma in remission (control group) were selected from public schools. They answered a questionnaire about quality of life (The World Health Organization Quality of Life- WHOQOL-BREF), previously validated for the study population. Domains (physical, psychological, social relations, environment and total score) were compared between groups, as well as the levels of correlation of self-perceived quality of life and satisfaction with health.

Results:

101 parents/caregivers were included in the sample, that is, 50 (49.5%) parents of asthmatic children and 51 (50.5%) in the control group. Most parents included in the sample were females (n=89; 88.1%), with mean age of 33.5±10.4 years. When assessing quality of life, the overall score of domains was considered satisfactory, both in general evaluation (68.6±13.4) and in each group (asthma: 62.8±10.7; control: 74.3±13.4; p-value<0.001). Comparison of asthma and control groups showed significant differences in total score and in scores of all domains (p<0.001).

Conclusions:

Parents/caregiversof children with asthma have a lower quality of life compared to parents/caregivers of healthy children.

Keywords:
Asthma; Quality of life; Child; Caregiver

	Asthma	Control	p-value*	Total
	M±SD	M±SD	p-value*	M±SD
Perception of QoL	70.5±12.0	75.5±19.0	0.119	73.0±16.1
Satisfaction with health	62.5±20.4	74.0±22.3	0.008*	68.3±22.0
Physical domain	61.6±17.8	75.0±14.8	<0.001*	68.4±17.6
Psychological domain	62.6±14.9	75.6±14.5	<0.001*	69.1±16.0
Social relations	64.9±15.9	77.1±16.6	<0.001*	71.1±17.3
Environment	53.9±14.3	68.8±14.3	<0.001*	61.4±16.0
Total score	62.8±10.7	74.3±13.4	<0.001*	68.6±13.4

Domains	Asthma group				Control group
	Perception of QoL		Satisfaction with health status		Perception of QoL		Satisfaction with health status
	r²	p-value	r²	p-value	r²	p-value	r²	p-value
Physical	0.37	0.008*	0.18	0.214	0.48	<0.001*	0.44	0.001*
Psychological	0.47	0.001*	0.25	0.083	0.76	<0.001*	0.52	<0.001*
Social relations	0.41	0.003*	0.17	0.228	0.55	<0.001*	0.47	0.001*
Environment	0.49	<0.001*	0.18	0.215	0.75	<0.001*	0.50	<0.001*
Total score	0.72	<0.001*	0.57	<0.001*	0.84	<0.001*	0.75	<0.001*

	Control group		Asthma group (persistent)			p-value*
	Healthy (n=34)	In remission (n=17)	Mild (n=18)	Moderate (n=20)	Severe (n=12)
	M±SD	M±SD	M±SD	M±SD	M±SD
Perception of QoL	77.2±19.8	72.1±17.4	68.1±11.5	70.0±13.1	75.0±10.7	0.230
Satisfaction with health	75.0±22.2	72.1±23.1	59.7±19.4	62.5±23.6	66.7±16.3	0.064
Physical domain	75.6±15.1^†	73.7±14.6^†	64.9±16.2	57.5±22.0^‡	63.7±10.4	0.006*
Psychological domain	75.6±13.4^†	75.5±16.8^†	64.3±16.1	59.6±15.9^‡	64.9±11.4	0.002*
Social relations	79.4±13.6^‡	72.5±21.0	61.8±14.7^†	66.2±14.7^†	67.4±19.9	0.002*
Environment	70.3±13.6^‡	65.8±15.5^†	51.7±14.5^†	52.8±15.5^†	59.1±11.0	<0.001*
Total score	75.5±12.3^‡	71.9±15.5	61.8±11.5^†	61.6±11.9^†	66.1±10.9	0.001*

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[1] *Corresponding author. E-mail: crisron@gmail.com (C. Roncada).