Health-related quality of life in paediatric arterial hypertension: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: The prevalence of paediatric hypertension is increasing worldwide, especially due to the childhood obesity epidemic, and is an important public-health concern. While the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) was already shown to be impaired in the adult hypertensive population, a scarcity of data still exists on HRQoL in paediatric hypertensive patients. Our purpose was thus to assess the HRQoL of children and adolescents with arterial hypertension, using self- and proxy-reports, and to determine the correlations between child and parent questionnaire scores. Methods: The Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales were administered via post to children and adolescents, aged 5-18 years, with primary or secondary arterial hypertension and parents as proxy-reports. Patients were recruited from a paediatric nephrology unit in a tertiary hospital, using an out-patient clinic visit registry. Healthy school children and adolescents from a local primary school, aged 6 to 15 years, and their parents formed the control group. HRQoL group comparisons were calculated with independent samples t-test and child-parent correlations with the Pearson's r correlation coefficient. Results: In total we recruited 139 patient and 199 control group participants as self- and proxy-reports. Scores from self- as well as proxy-reports indicated a significantly lower overall HRQoL in the paediatric hypertensive population (95% CI for mean score difference: -11.02, -2.86 for self- and-10.28, -2.67 for proxy-reports; p=.001). In self-reports, lower physical (95% CI: -13.95, -4.89; p=