Abstract
BackgroundAsthma is a serious global health problem and its prevalence is increasing, especially among children. It represents a significant social and economic burden, and it can severely affect the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of patients. Among the numerous questionnaires aiming at evaluating asthma HRQL in children, the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) has proved to have good measurement properties.The present study was aimed at investigating the possible role of the Italian, self-administered version of the PAQLQ in the routine clinical evaluation of children affected by bronchial asthma.Methods52 Italian children and adolescents (40 males and 12 females), aged 6 to 17 years, affected by allergic asthma, were enrolled. Each patient was evaluated twice, and at each visit asthma control and severity were assessed, spirometry was performed and the patients completed the self-administered version of the PAQLQ.ResultsThe questionnaire was well-accepted and understood by the children. Children showed an overall good quality of life, with mild impairment in the activity and emotional function domains. The PAQLQ showed an overall good correlation with the clinical and functional indexes that are normally evaluated in follow-up visits of asthmatic patients. The PAQLQ appeared to be strongly related to asthma control, both at the first (p < 0.01) and second (p < 0.001) time of the study. The PAQLQ was also seen to decrease with increasing asthma severity. The results suggest a better compliance of the children towards completion of the questionnaire at t1. Finally, the PAQLQ does not appear to discriminate HRQL in patients with good lung function.ConclusionThe Italian version of the PAQLQ is a quick-to-administer aid to clinical activity and can add valuable information to symptom reports, objective measurements and clinical assessment of asthma control and severity in daily clinical practice. Re-administration at each follow-up visit allows HRQL to be monitored over time.
Highlights
Asthma is a serious global health problem and its prevalence is increasing, especially among children
The same test showed that patients affected by seasonal-type asthma at the first visit had a better health-related quality of life (HRQL) than those affected by non-seasonal-type asthma (p ≤ 0.05); this difference was no longer present at the second visit
To analyze better the relationship between the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) and lung function, the PAQLQ score was evaluated in 5 subgroups of patients who were divided according to their forced expiratory volume at the first second (FEV1) (Figure 3)
Summary
Asthma is a serious global health problem and its prevalence is increasing, especially among children. It represents a significant social and economic burden, and it can severely affect the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of patients. Among the numerous questionnaires aiming at evaluating asthma HRQL in children, the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) has proved to have good measurement properties. The role of the evaluation of patients' health-related quality of life (HRQL) has gained importance since 1948, when the World Health Organization defined health as being the absence of disease and infirmity, and the presence of physical, mental and social well-being [1,2]. Even mild asthmatics suffer on account of their condition: the level of anxiety has been recognised as comparable in children with mild and severe asthma [13,14]
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