MEASURING QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN CHILDREN WITH ASTHMA

The Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire contains 23 items that children with asthma have identified as troublesome in their dail y lives. The aim was to evaluate the measurement properties of the que stionnaire. The study design consisted of a 9 week single cohort study with assessments at 1, 5 and 9 weeks. Patients participating in the s tudy were fifty-two children, 7-17 years of age, with a wide range of asthma severity. At each clinic visit, a trained interviewer administe red the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire, the Feeling T hermometer, a clinical asthma control questionnaire and measured spiro metry. For 1 week before each clinic visit, patients recorded morning peak flow rates, medication use and symptoms in a diary. The Paediatri c Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire was able to detect quality of l ife changes in those patients who altered their health status either a s a result of treatment or natural fluctuations in their asthma (p < 0 .001) and to differentiate these patients from those who remained stab le (p < 0.0001). It was reproducible in patients who were stable (ICC = 0.95), which also indicates the instrument's strength to discriminat e between subjects of different impairment levels. The questionnaire s howed good levels of both longitudinal and cross-sectional correlation s with the conventional asthma indices and with general quality of lif e. The results were consistent across individual domains and different age strata. The Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire has g ood measurement properties and is valid both as an evaluative and a di scriminative instrument. It captures aspects of asthma most important to the patient and adds additional information to conventional clinica l outcomes.