JLE

Epileptic Disorders

MENU

Correlation between child and parental perceptions of health-related quality of life in epilepsy using the PedsQL.v4.0 measurement model Volume 12, numéro 4, December 2010

Auteurs
Department of Neurology, Temple University Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Drexel University College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Department of Neurology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Health-related quality-of-life measures in childhood epilepsy are typically limited to a particular functional domain, specific age group, parent proxy-report, or child self-report. Generic health-related quality-of-life instruments in paediatric epilepsy comparing child self-reports with simultaneous parent proxy-reports have not been previously investigated. A previously validated generic questionnaire, the Pediatric Quality of Life version 4 (PedsQL.v4.0), was used to prospectively assess parental and child perceptions of health-related quality of life in 100 children with epilepsy. The correlation between child and parental health-related quality-of-life perceptions across all domains was excellent (p < 0.001) and both were significantly lower than those for healthy controls (p < 0.001). Parents' perceptions of their children's health-related quality of life were lower than those for other chronic illnesses (p < 0.001), especially for refractory epilepsy. The presence of neurological or psychiatric comorbidities also had an adverse impact on health-related quality of life. The PedsQL.v4.0 measures health-related quality of life from both the parent's and child's perspective. Ease of use makes this instrument attractive for routine clinical use.