Health related quality of life among children with Type I diabetes, Assiut city, Egypt

Objective: Health related quality of life (HRQOL) is a multidimensional construct that includes physical and psychosocial functioning, has emerged as an important outcome in pediatric population with chronic health conditions. The study objectives are to measure the quality of life among children with type I diabetes compared to healthy peers and to determine factors affecting the QOL among children with type I diabetes. Methods: Analytic cross sectional study was conducted in Sidi Galal health insurance outpatient clinic for children with type 1 diabetes mellitus and a comparison group of healthy peers was taken from other outpatient clinics. A total of four hundred and twelve children, aged from 8-18 years with type 1 diabetes and four hundred and twelve healthy peers matched in age and sex were interviewed. Three tools were used for this study: Demographic questionnaire, Socio-economic scale, and Peds QL4.0 Generic Core Scale was used to measure HRQOL. Results: The mean age of studied children was 12.9 ± 3.2. More than 60% of children with diabetes had uncontrolled glycemic level and 60% of them were in low socio-economic level. Children with diabetes had significantly lower HRQOL than healthy children in all domains. Age, glycemic control status and birth order of the diabetic children showed no significance difference regarding the QOL. Disease duration affected only the emotional function of the QOL and females showed significantly higher score regarding school functioning. Social, school and the total QOL scores were significantly higher among children with highly educated mothers while father's education affected the emotional, school and total QOL scores. Children in the middle and high social class showed significantly higher scores regarding social, school and total QOL. Presence of diabetic parent positively affected the social functioning while had negative effect on the school function of children with type I diabetes. Conclusions and recommendations: Diabetes is negatively affecting all the QOL functioning of the children. We recommend that Integrated programs between child's home, school and health insurance clinics for educating and supporting children with diabetes to improve their HRQOL.