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[Quality of life among pediatric asthma patients]
1Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Institut Català de la Salut, Martorell, Barcelona, España.
Insights
The Spanish version of the Paediatric Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) is a reliable tool for assessing childhood asthma. This validated instrument effectively measures symptom impact, activity limitations, and emotional function in Spanish-speaking children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Pulmonology
- Health Outcomes Research
- Quality of Life Assessment
Background:
- Asthma is a leading chronic childhood illness, with treatment traditionally focusing on symptom and lung function improvements.
- Conventional measures often overlook functional impairment, a critical aspect for patients' daily lives.
- Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessments have gained importance for a comprehensive patient health status evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a Spanish version of the Paediatric Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ).
- To ensure the Spanish PAQLQ accurately reflects the impact of asthma on children's daily lives, including symptoms, activity limitations, and emotional function.
Main Methods:
- A translation-retranslation methodology was employed for cultural adaptation of the PAQLQ into Spanish.
- A 5-week longitudinal study involving 99 asthmatic children assessed the Spanish PAQLQ's measurement characteristics.
- Evaluations were conducted at weeks 1 and 5 to determine reliability, validity, and sensitivity to clinical changes.
Main Results:
- The Spanish version of the PAQLQ demonstrated reliable, valid, and sensitive measurement properties.
- The adapted questionnaire maintained similar characteristics to the original English version.
- The study confirmed the utility of culturally adapted HRQoL instruments in pediatric asthma research.
Conclusions:
- The Spanish PAQLQ is a suitable instrument for assessing the health status of Spanish-speaking children with asthma.
- Cultural adaptation and rigorous validation are crucial for the effective use of health status questionnaires.
- Incorporating HRQoL measures like the Spanish PAQLQ provides a more holistic understanding of pediatric asthma's impact.
Abstract:
Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease. For many years improvement of symptoms and normalization of lung function have been the main goals in treatment of paediatric asthma. This conventional measures provide information about the impairement of the lung, but rarely capture the functional impairment which is the most important for the patient. In the 90' health related quality of life mesures have been developed and many clinicians recognize the importance of incorporating this assessment in order to obtain a global information of a patient's health status. The Paediatric Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) is a specific questionnaire developed by Junniper et al which assesses the impact of asthma on the daily life of a child. It containes 23 items which cover 3 dimensions: symptoms, activities limitation and emotional function. We developed a conceptually equivalent version of the PAQLQ. In order to adapt the PAQLQ to the Spanish language, the method of translation-retranslation was used. In order to assess the measurement characteristics of the Spanish version thus obttained, a 5 week longitudinal study was undertaken with evaluations at the end of the 1st and 5th weeks. 99 asthmatic patients were included in the study. Accurate cultural adaptation should be carried on before using a health status questionnaire. Appropriate translation methods should be complemented with the evaluation of the properties of the adapted version. The Spanish version of the PAQLQ maintains similar measurement properties to the original instrument and is reliable, valid and sensitive to clinical changes.