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Quality of life of the family of children with asthma is not related to asthma severity

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Abstract

The quality of life for the family is an important outcome of childhood asthma. The aim of the study was to describe the quality of life in families who have a child with asthma. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Family Impact Module was completed by the parents of 527 children with asthma. The median overall score was 75.0 (interquartile range 63.9, 87.5). The following factors were independently associated with lower quality of life: additional difficulties such as anxiety and financial hardship (3.81 [2.45, 5.93]), waking with asthma symptoms one or more nights a week (odds ratio 2.53 [1.34, 4.75]), regular use of symptoms reliever medication (2.47 [1.57, 3.87]), and female gender (1.97 [1.27, 3.05]). Lower socioeconomic status of the family and exposure to molds at home doubled the odds for lower quality of life. Physician’s diagnosed asthma severity and control were associated with quality of life in univariate, but not multivariate analysis.

Conclusion: Multiple factors, several of which are not related to asthma, contribute to the family burden of having a child with asthma. Clinicians should be mindful of the impact of asthma on the child and the family, and consider exploring factors not directly related to childhood asthma.

What is Known:

• Childhood asthma as a chronic disease impacts the quality of life of the patient, but there is also an impact on the immediate family.

• There are relatively few studies exploring the quality of life of parents of a child with asthma; the results are heterogeneous and none has been carried out in an Eastern European country.

What is New:

• This is the first study to describe caregiver’s quality of life in an Eastern European population in the context of childhood asthma.

• The quality of life of the family of asthmatic child depends not only on factors related to asthma, but also non-asthma related factors such as poverty which play even more important role.

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Abbreviations

ACT:

Asthma Control Test

C:

Communication Scale

CACT:

Childhood Asthma Control Test

CF:

Cognitive Functioning Scale

CI:

Confidence interval

DA:

Daily Activities Scale

DALYs:

Disability-adjusted life years

EF:

Emotional Functioning Scale

FR:

Family Relationships Scale

IQR:

Interquartile range

OR:

Odds ratio

PedsQLFIM:

Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Family Impact Module

PF:

Physical Functioning Scale

SF:

Social Functioning Scale

QoL:

Quality of life

W:

Worry scale

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Acknowledgments

Authors express gratitude to participants of this study (children with diagnosed asthma and their parents) who agreed to participate in a study and complete questionnaires.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health, Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, M.K Ciurlionio str. 21, 03101, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vaida Taminskiene, Rimantas Stukas & Arunas Valiulis

  2. Clinic of Children’s Diseases, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Antakalnio str. 57, 10207, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Tomas Alasevicius & Arunas Valiulis

  3. Department of Rehabilitation, Physical and Sports Medicine, Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, M.K Ciurlionio str. 21, 03101, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Algirdas Valiulis

  4. Medical Academy, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Tilzes str. 18, 47181, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Egle Vaitkaitiene

  5. European University of Cyprus, 6, Diogenis Str, 2404 Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Adamos Hadjipanayis

  6. Child Health, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB25 2ZG, UK

    Steve Turner

Authors
  1. Vaida Taminskiene
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  2. Tomas Alasevicius
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  3. Algirdas Valiulis
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  4. Egle Vaitkaitiene
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  6. Adamos Hadjipanayis
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  7. Steve Turner
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  8. Arunas Valiulis
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Contributions

VT developed study protocol, collected data, performed data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. TA collected data and performed data analysis. AlgV contributed to data analysis; EV developed study protocol, collected data, and reviewed the manuscript. RS supervised the design and execution of the study. AH reviewed the manuscript. ST performed data analysis and reviewed the manuscript. ArV supervised the design and execution of the study, contributed to data collection and analysis, and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arunas Valiulis.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval

The study was approved by Vilnius regional ethical committee, ref. no 158200-14-749-265.

Informed consent

Informed consent forms to participate in a study were signed by parents and children from 8 years old.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Mario Bianchetti

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Taminskiene, V., Alasevicius, T., Valiulis, A. et al. Quality of life of the family of children with asthma is not related to asthma severity. Eur J Pediatr 178, 369–376 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-018-3306-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-018-3306-8

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