Health Related Quality of Life of Children Aged 2-18 Years With Familial Mediterranean Fever

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to evaluate both child-self reported and parents proxy reported health related quality of life of children with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) aged between 2-18 years old and to compare the scores with their healthy peers. Material and Methods: Fifty -one patients with FMF and fifty one gender and age matched controls were enrolled in the study. Children aged 8-18 years completed the PedsQL4.0 child form questionnaires. Parents of all cases completed the PedsQL4.0 parent form. Results: Lower scores in the FMF group, with no statistical significance, was found between the FMF cases and healthy volunteers aged 8-18 years for the physical health, social health, school functioning, psychosocial total and scale total score of PEDsQL4.0 child self-report. The parent proxy report PedsQL4.0 scores of all patients with FMF were lower than the healthy group for physical, emotional, social, psycho-social, school functioning scores and scale total score but the difference was not statistically significant. A significant correlation was present between PedsQL4.0 child self-report and parent PedsQL4.0 report in all subscales except for social health total score. There was not a significant correlation between the demographic variables and clinical features of the patients and the child subscales of PedsQL4.0. Conclusion: The scores of FMF cases from the scales were lower than those of the healthy volunteers from the questionnaires but this difference was not statistically significant. Considering the relatively small sample size of the study it is obvious that more comprehensive prospective studies are required on this subject.