Assessment of health status and quality of life outcomes for children withasthma

Increasing Interest has been directed to understanding health outcomes asso ciated with pediatric disease processes, Including asthma, Salient areas of interest to health outcomes research include the child's and parent's subj ective experience with the disease, a concept most often identified as qual ity of life. Quality of life reports fit within a broader scope of outcome measures embodied in the concept of children's health status. This article provides a description for how a child's health status can be understood th eoretically, from a research perspective and in clinical practice, Emphasis is directed to how information obtained from both the child and parent is critical to outcomes research and clinical practice. Unique methodologic pr oblems in assessing child health outcomes such as the challenge of understa nding how the child's changing cognitive development may have an impact on responses to outcome measures and the role of contextual variables such as family characteristics are discussed. A variety of subjective and objective outcome measures currently exist that may be used in research on children with asthma, Practical guidelines for implementing outcomes research for ch ildren with asthma are presented. Clinical researchers must use multiple ou tcome measures for assessing asthma characteristics, including psychosocial characteristics which have an impact on adherence and treatment regimens.