Structural Equation Model of Health-Related Quality of Life in School Age Children with Asthma

Abstract

This study aimed to construct and test a hypothetical model of the quality of life of school-age children with asthma based on the health-related quality of life model by Wilson and Cleary. Data were collected from 205 pairs of pediatric outpatients diagnosed with asthma and their parents in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do from July 2016 to April 2017. The exogenous variables were asthma knowledge, number of accompanying allergic diseases, and social support. The endogenous variables were asthma self-efficacy, asthma symptom control, perceived health status, parental quality of life, and children's quality of life. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were performed. Eighteen of the twenty-four hypotheses selected for the hypothetical model were attentive and supported statistically. Quality of life was explained by asthma self-efficacy, asthma symptom control, perceived health, parental quality of life, and asthma knowledge with 83.5%. Strategies for promoting self-efficacy and enforcing asthma knowledge will be helpful for the improvement of health-related quality of life with school-aged asthmatic children.