Quality of Life Reported by Pre-School Children and their Primary Caregivers

Abstract

This study examines the association between perceptions of primary caregivers (parent-report) and children (self-report) on their quality of life (QoL) at pre-school age. We also aimed to analyze the health, sociodemographic, and developmental predictors that better explain their QoL. The study comprised 83 healthy children, who attended public kindergarten, with a mean of five years of age, as well as their primary caregivers. The Autoquestionnaire Qualite de Vie Enfant Image-AUQEI assessed the self-reported QoL and the Child Health Questionnaire-50 Parent Form-CHQ-PF50 evaluated the parent-reported QoL. Additionally, the Denver II test assessed the child psychomotor development. The multivariate analysis was performed to identify predictive models of QoL reported by parents and children. The significance level was 5%. Fifty children (72%) reported satisfactory QoL according to their self-report (AUQEI). The primary caregivers also reported good QoL in their children (mean scores >70 in all CHQ-PF50 domains). The correlations between the AUQEI and CHQPF50 scores were weak and not significant. There was no significant prediction model of self-reported QoL. However, the worst parent-reported levels of QoL were predicted by female gender, higher frequency of hospitalization, medication use, personal-social development at risk, and school difficulties. The perceptions of the primary caregivers and the children about their QoL at preschool age were not associated. The health, sociodemographic, and developmental indicators were related in a different way with each source of information. None of these indicators explained the self-reported QoL, whereas current health and development indicators predicted the parent-reported QoL.