This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Parents of children with atopic dermatitis held similar views on results of QoL assessments

Parents with children affected by atopic dermatitis viewed quality of life assessment results and the condition’s impact on their children and families similarly in a recent international study.

Researchers evaluated data on 419 children (aged 0 to 4) diagnosed with atopic dermatitis (AD) from six countries. Multiple versions of the infant’s dermatitis quality of life index (IDQoL) and the dermatitis family impact questionnaire (DFI) — including those in English, Ukrainian, Czech, Portuguese, Dutch and Korean — were used to study the impact of AD. IDQoL and DFI assessments each consisted of 10 questions; scores ranged from 0-3, with higher cumulative scores indicating greater impaired QoL.

South Korean parents assessed their children’s AD disease severity as greater than the other five countries (2.56 ± 0.88 vs. 1.86 ± 0.80 for Ukraine) (P<.05). Mean IDQoL and DFI results were greater for South Korean children (11.30 and 10.04, respectively), while Dutch children had the lowest mean IDQoL (4.69) (P<.05). The categories that scored highest for IDQoL (symptoms, time to get to sleep and problems at bath time) were similar across all countries, as were results for DFI items (tiredness/exhaustion, expenditure).

DFI and IDQoL results were well correlated with parental assessments of AD disease severity (P<.0001), and they were common between all six countries (P<.0001).

“Our results showed that parents in different countries assessed QoL and family QoL of their children with AD in a similar way,” the researchers concluded. “It makes it possible to recommend the IDQoL and the DFI questionnaires for international studies as reliable initial measuring tools to assess impact and efficacy of treatment.

“The next important step … should be an international study on the influence of the same treatment methods on the IDQoL and DFI results.”