engleski

Classification of asthma severity and health related quality of life in children- are they comparable?

The majority of children with asthma have mild disease. In mild asthma physiological disturbance may be present on a chronic basis, but intermittent unpredictable symptoms and perceived loss of control could also significantly impact health related quality-of life (HRQoL). Although HRQoL is reduced in moderate to severe asthma, little is known about the effect of mild asthma on HRQoL outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of intermittent asthma on HRQoL and to compare it with persistent asthma. Methods: We evaluated HRQoL in 96 asthmatic children aged 7-18 years (mean, 11.46 years). This study used Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) with scores range from 1 to 7. The relations between HRQol and severity of asthma were tested with ANOVA test. T-test for independent samples was used for comparetion of PAQLQ scores for children with intermittent asthma and children with persistent asthma. Ninety six asthmatic children completed PAQLQ test, 46 were classify as intermittent, 36 as mild persistent, 16 as moderate persistent, and only one as severe persistent (we recoded this patient to lower category). Results: The results showed that there is uper limit statistically significant difference of overall PAQOL score and severity of astma (F= 3.080, p=0.052), children with moderated persistent asthma have lower scores on global PQOL measure than other children. We also found statistical significant difference between symptoms domain of PAQOL and severity of asthma. Resultates show that children with moderated persistent asthma have lower scores on symptoms domain than children with mild asthma. T-test showed us significant difference in all of the main domains and overall PAQLQ scores between asthmatic children with intermittent and persistent asthma Conclusion: This study shows that children with a mild spectrum of asthma have significant inpairment on HRQoL. Children with intemittent and mild persitent asthma frequently have concomitant allergic rhinitis and exercise induced bronchoconstriction that may account for many of their symptoms and impairment of health related quality-of life.Treatment of moderate to severe asthma improve HRQoL and similarly, therapy for mild asthma may improve HRQoL. With medical categorization of severity of asthma, which is priory based on frequencies and severity of symptoms of asthma, we can also assess a degree of HRQoL satisfactions.

classification of asthma; quality-of life

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