Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Maher, Elise

Titel

Health-related quality of life of severely obese children and adolescents

Ist Teil von

• Child : care, health & development, 2004-01, Vol.30 (1), p.94-95

Ort / Verlag

Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2004

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Context  One in seven US children and adolescents is obese, yet little is known about their health‐related quality of life (QOL). Objective  To examine the health‐related QOL of obese children and adolescents compared with children and adolescents who are healthy or those diagnosed as having cancer. Design, setting and participants  Cross‐sectional study of 106 children and adolescents (57 males) between the ages of 5 and 18 years [mean (SD) 12.1 (3) years], who had been referred to an academic children's hospital for evaluation of obesity between January and June 2002. Children and adolescents had a mean (SD) body mass index (BMI) of 34.7 (9.3) and BMI z‐score of 2.6 (0.5). Main outcome measures  Child self‐report and parent‐proxy report using a paediatric QOL inventory generic core scale (range 0–100). The inventory was administered by an interviewer for children aged 5 through 7 years. Scores were compared with previously published scores for healthy children and adolescents and children and adolescents diagnosed as having cancer. Results  Compared with healthy children and adolescents, obese children and adolescents reported significantly (P < 0.001) lower health‐related QOL in all domains [mean (SD) total score, 67 (16.3) for obese children and adolescents; 83 (14.8) for healthy children and adolescents]. Obese children and adolescents were more likely to have impaired health‐related QOL than healthy children and adolescents [odds ratio (OR) 5.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.4–8.7] and were similar to children and adolescents diagnosed as having cancer (OR 1.3; 95% CI 0.8–2.3). Children and adolescents with obstructive sleep apnoea reported a significantly lower health‐related QOL total score [mean (SD), 53.8 (13.3)] than obese children and adolescents without obstructive sleep apnoea [mean (SD), 67.9 (16.2)]. For parent‐proxy report, the child or adolescent's BMI z‐score was significantly inversely correlated with total score (r = −0.246; P = 0.01), physical functioning (r = −0.263; P < 0.01), social functioning (r = −0.347; P < 0.001), and psychosocial functioning (r = −0.209; P = 0.03). Conclusions  Severely obese children and adolescents have lower health‐related QOL than children and adolescents who are healthy and similar QOL as those diagnosed as having cancer. Physicians, parents and teachers need to be informed of the risk for impaired health‐related QOL among obese children and adolescents to target interventions that could enhance health outcomes.