Cough affects Quality of Life in asthmatic children aged 8-14 more than other asthma symptoms

WOS: 000266043000006PubMed ID: 19445864Background: Asthma may influence children's health-related quality of life (QoL) differently by various symptoms, at different severity. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the QoL in children with asthma and describe the impact of each asthma symptom on the child's well-being at different severity levels. Material and Methods: Two hundred randomly selected children and one of their parents who consulted an outpatient asthma clinic, participated in the study. Qol was assessed with DISABKIDS-Smiley measure for children aged 4-7 years and with DISABKIDS DCGM-37 and Asthma Module for children 8-14 year old. Results: Most of the children suffered from mild or moderate persistent asthma. Children with uncontrolled asthma stated lower QoL compared to partly controlled or controlled in both age groups (p < 0.05 in all domains). Cough appeared to affect QoL of 8-14 year olds more than other symptoms, especially in girls. In younger children, sex (boys, p = 0.039), age (p = 0.045), proxy sex (father, p = 0.048), frequency of doctor visits (4-6 months, p = 0.001) use of beta-2 agonists (p = 0.007) and father's smoking habits (p = 0.015) were associated with the QoL of coughing children but no correlation between cough and QoL was detected. In the 8-14 year age group coughers reported lower QoL compared to their counterparts; moreover, cough was found to affect QoL more than other symptoms (p < 0.05 in all domains). Conclusions: Cough has a direct effect on asthmatic children's QoL but there is still an obvious need for research to reveal all the determinats of this effect. (C) 2008 SEICAP. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L. All rights reserved.European CommissionEuropean Commission Joint Research Centre [QLG5-CT-2000-00716]The DISABKIDS project was supported by the European Commission (QLG5-CT-2000-00716) within the Fifth Framework Program "Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources". The European Union has granted this project for the development of a modular questionnaire to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children and adolescents with chronic health conditions