Quality of life of children with asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a serious global health problem that causes limitations on child's quality of life. The aims of this study were to identify the quality of life of asthmatic children and the relationship between QOL with age and gender. This cross-sectional study was conducted at outpatient paediatric clinics of three selected hospitals in Selangor area. The hospitals include Selayang Hospital, Sungai Buloh Hospital and HTAR hospital. QOL data were collected using the original Malay version of the PAQLQ and was answered by 106 subjects aged 7 to 12 years old. The relationship between QOL and two groups of gender, and the relationship between age and QOL in this study were compared by using chi-square test. Meanwhile, total mean score for PAQLQ result is 4.37 (moderately impairment of QOL). The total mean scores of domain symptoms, activities and emotions of PAQLQ were 4.20, 4.20 and 4.88, respectively. Nonetheless, no significant association was reported between gender and degree of impairment in QOL of asthmatic children (p = 0.221). Furthermore, there was no significance different between age of the asthmatic children and QOL in this study (p = 0.681). The results of the study are important to improve the management of asthmatic children. For the next research, the researcher may be adding duration of asthma experienced by each sample as it may strongly affect the quality of life of asthmatic children.