Assessment of the health related quality of life in children with asthma in a tertiary hospital in North Central, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways with over 339 million people affected worldwide. Asthma can impair the quality of life (QoL) in its various bio-psycho-social domains causing poor concentration, poor school performance and impaired daily activities. This study assessed the QoL in asthmatic children aged 7- 17 years.

Methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study of 46 children with asthma. Relevant bio-data and medical history were documented and the QoL assessment was carried out using the paediatric asthma quality of life questionnaire. Asthma severity and asthma control were defined based on the global initiative for asthma protocol. The data was analysed with IBM SPSS version 22.

Results: the mean age was 12.4 ± 3.3 years, with a male to female ratio of 1: 1.9. About 61% of the study population were moderately impaired in their QoL and 41.3% had uncontrolled asthma. The mean QoL score was 5.80 with the activity domain and the emotion domain having the lowest mean scores (5.78 ± 1.0 and 5.91 ± 1.2 respectively). There was a significant association between QoL and age, asthma severity, asthma control and social class (p< 0.05) but not Gender. The logistic regression did not identify any of these factors as being predictors of QoL in the children.

Conclusion: the study participants had moderately impaired QoL with the 7-10 year-olds more severely affected. The activity and emotion domains are more impaired. Therefore in addition to providing medical intervention, the treatment of children with asthma should include psychological support and counselling.