Quality of life in childhood asthma: use of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire in a Swedish sample of children 7 to 9 years old

To validate a Swedish translation of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) and to study determinants of asthmatic children's qua lity of life, seventy-one 7-9-y-old children and their families were approa ched. Sixty-one children (86%) participated, 36 boys and 25 girls: 11 child ren with mild, 40 with moderate and 10 with severe asthma. The mean age was 8.7 y. Most commonly restricted activities during the week preceding the i nvestigation were running (74%), gymnastics (30%), walking uphill (26%), pl aying football (20%) and shouting (13%). Parental rating of symptoms (Spearman's rho = -0.40, p = 0.001), percentage of expected peak flow rate (PEFR) (rho = 0.30, p = 0.009) and physicians' grading(mild, moderate and severe asthma, p = 0.047) all correlated signifi cantly with PAQLQ scores. Younger children reported more impairment of QoL, as did children of parents not sharing household. Sex or presence of eczem a or rhinoconjunctivitis did not significantly affect the scores. Children suffering from food allergy scored less impairment of QoL. The instrument w as easy to administer, was well accepted by the children and bad acceptable internal consistency.