Factors influencing parent reports on quality of life for children with asthma

Children and parents often differ in their perceptions of a complex disease such as asthma. This ancillary study of children with mild to moderate asthma that was conducted at four of the eight clinics in the Childhood Asthma Management Program had two aims: (1) to relate quality of life to asthma symptoms, sociodemographic characteristics, child psychosocial adjustment and family social support and (2) to relate agreement between child- and parent-reported quality of life to child age. For this study participants completed the Caregiver's Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (C-PAQLQ), Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire, and a battery of psychosocial health outcomes questionnaires at the 12-month follow-up. The average asthma symptom score from diary cards for the 2 weeks before the visit was also collected. Parent-reported family burden was the strongest correlate of C-PAQLQ scores. Although the average asthma symptom score was not associated with parent-reported quality of life, the study had low power to detect a relationship because of the few episodes of asthma reported during the assessment period. The correlation between child and parent reported quality of life improved with increasing age of the child, suggesting increased child-parent agreement about quality of life outcomes was associated with increasing age of the child. Family characteristics, such as degree of cohesion among family members, are not associated with quality of life ratings.