Quality of life and its relation to pediatric asthma severity

Abstract

Background Bronchial asthma is a global health problem that negatively affects the quality of life (QOL) of both children and their caregivers. However, there is a paucity of data regarding the impact of QOL on asthma severity in the pediatric population. Therefore, we aimed to examine the effect of health-related QOL of children with asthma and their caregivers on the level of asthma control and the degree of asthma severity. Results At enrollment, thirty asthmatic children and their caregivers completed the study. The standardized Arabic versions of the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) and the Pediatric Asthma Caregiver's Quality of Life Questionnaire (PACQLQ) were fulfilled by the asthmatic patients and their caregivers, respectively. Asthma control and severity were assessed using Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines and asthma severity scores. The relations between QOL and the other study parameters including asthma severity were examined which revealed that poor QOL of both asthmatic children and their caregivers was associated with frequent asthma-related hospital admissions (p = 0.046, 0.011). In addition, significant associations were found between symptoms, activity domains of PAQLQ score, and asthma control test score (p = 0.019,0.039). Furthermore, both QOL questionnaires' total scores correlated strongly with asthma severity scores (p < 0.05 for all). Conclusions In this study, QOL appears to be strongly related to the level of asthma control and asthma severity in children. Therefore, improving QOL is recommended for proper management of patients with severe asthma. Moreover, QOL questionnaires can be used as useful tools for monitoring asthma severity in children.