Parents with Asthmatic Children, Quality of Life

Abstract

SynonymsCaregivers' health-related quality of life with asthmatic children; Caregivers' quality of life with asthmatic children; Parents' health-related quality of life with asthmatic children; Parental quality of life with asthmatic children. DefinitionAsthma is the most prevalent chronic health condition in childhood. The quality of life (QoL) of asthmatic children and their parents/caregivers has been increasingly acknowledged as an important outcome in pediatric asthma health care. Although children's QoL has been the main focus of research, scholars and clinicians in the field of pediatric chronic conditions have also started to take an interest in how parents perceive their own QoL. In this relatively new area of inquiry, research has conceptualized and assessed parents' QoL in diverse ways. Consequently, scientific literature on parents' QoL is heterogeneous, and a clear or consensual definition for this construct is still elusive.Two main approaches have been developed to study the QoL of parents with children who have chronic conditions, including asthma. A generic approach has examined parents' QoL according to the universal definition provided by the World Health Organization, which is that QoL is a multidimensional construct covering the physical health, level of independence, psychological state, social relationships and interactions with the environment, as subjectively perceived by the individual embedded in a cultural context (The WHOQOL Group, 1998). A specific approach, which is applied in the majority of studies, has looked at the perceived impact of a child's disease and treatments on