Modern approaches to assessing the quality of life in children with arrhythmias

Abstract

The paper presents the special questionnaire «Quality of Life in Children with Arrhythmias» that reflects the subjective assessment of quality of life (QOL) in patients with cardiac arrhythmias and a procedure for the comprehensive assessment of QOL in children with arrhythmias on the basis of subjective and objective data. It gives the results of using the above procedures for assessing QOL in 151 children (71 girls and 80 boys) aged 6–18 years with various cardiac arrhythmias. Complaints were absent in 21,9±3,4% of the children with arrhythmia and were nonspecific, being rarely observed, in 29,8±3,7%, suggesting that there was no reduction in QOL according to their subjective assessments. Comprehensive assessment of QOL showed that its indicators were significantly lower (p<0,05) than those obtained by subjective assessments. Thus, cardiac arrhythmias accompanied by a varying decrease in QOL were seen in 84,8±2,9% of the children, as shown by its comprehensive assessment and in 48,3±4,1% of the patients, as evidenced by their subjective assessments. Patients with organic heart disease and/or signs of chronic heart failure exhibited a decrease in QOL significantly more often (p<0,001). The leading causes of worse QOL were health changes in 56,3±4,0% of the patients, psychoemotional disorders in 77,5±3,4%, autonomic dysfunction in 81,5±3,2%, reduced adjustment in 82,8±3,1%, and pathological changes in cardiovascular function in 84,1±3,0%, as indicated by ECG, 24-hour ECG monitoring, and Doppler echocardiography.