Quality of life in inflammatory bowel disease: A cross-cultural comparisonof English and Canadian children

Background: Any disease and its treatment has an important impact on health -related quality of life for affected individuals. There have been few prev ious studies on the quality of life for children with inflammatory bowel di sease (IBD). Methods: A cross-cultural comparison was performed to determine whether the concerns of children with IBD in the United Kingdom are ranked similarly t o those of children with IBD in Canada. An item reduction questionnaire. de veloped from interviews with Canadian children with IBD, was scored by 53 B ritish children with IBD for importance and frequency, as a questionnaire h ad been scored previously by 117 Canadian children. Results: There was a significant correlation between the mean scores (r = 0 .831. P < 0.001) and ranks (r = 0.801, P < 0.001) for the 96 questions, and 43 of the 50 highest-ranking concerns corresponded for both populations. C onfidence interval analysis showed a significant difference between the mea n values for 21 of the 96 items: 20 of these 21 were ranked higher in the U nited Kingdom than they had been in Canada, suggesting that the frequency a nd/or degree of concern was greater for the British children with IBD. Conclusions: Health-related concerns of British children with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis correlate closely with those of Canadian children w ith those diseases. Further studies are needed to determine the sensitivity of individual questions. the most appropriate wording of these questions, and the optimal length for a proposed instrument to assess quality of life in children with IBD.