Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
This presentation is part of : Issues in Child and Adolescent Health
Do the proxy assessment of Asthma-Related Quality of Life by parents could be trusted?
Li-Chi Chiang, PhD, School of Nursing, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan and Li-Fen Tzeng, General education, National Taichung Institute of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan.
Learning Objective #1: To understand the situations of qualtiy of life among children with asthma.
Learning Objective #2: To realize that parents reports quit different with children's report.

Purpose: To compare the differences of parents report and children self-report Asthma-Related Quality of Life (ARQOL).Design: A cross-sectional survey study of 474 children and their parents were recruited from Taiwan.
Methods: The ARQOL questionnaire which included five dimensions: restriction of social life, physical disturbances from signs/symptoms, limitation of physical activity, daily inconveniences in managing the disease, and emotional distress was developed with good internal consistency and construct validity.

Results: Besides the “daily inconveniences in managing the disease” was no significantly difference between parents and children, parents have significantly different assessment of all of the other four domains of ARQOL compare to the self-report by children with asthma. Parents reported children’s physical disturbances including four day and night symptoms severe than children’s self report.  Children with asthma significantly felt their social lives were more restricted; the physical activities were more limited; and their emotions more distress than parents’ report. Most parents concerned children’s physical disturbances and afraid the diseases were not well controlled, and overlook their social, physical activity, and emotional need. If children could understand the questionnaire and correct express their feeling, the subjective assessment their quality of life should be more reliable method than proxy assessment.

Conclusion: Although children's limited cognitive and language ability, the appropriate questionnaire could collect the real data than parents' reports.