Halwani R, Al-kufeidy R, Muharib BA, Alkhashram FM, Hussain SIB, Alhenaki RS, Vazquez-Tello A, Al-Frayh A, Iqbal SM and Al-Muhsen S
Background: Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease afflicting people worldwide without distinction of age, gender or ethnicity. The health-related quality of life (HRQL) of adolescents with asthma can be disrupted considerably and may reflect the effectiveness of symptoms management, therapy and health services provided.
Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of Saudi Arab adolescents with documented clinical history of asthma, classified by severity.
Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life (PAQLQ) and the Mini Asthma Quality of life (Mini-AQLQ) questionnaires were applied to 135 randomly recruited asthma patients (11-to-19 years old) in the period between January and June 2012, grouped as intermitent, mild, moderate, or severe.
Results: In 9 of 27 questions, significantly impaired HRQL was perceived by severe asthmatics, relative to intermittent patients; in particular, almost all aspects of the symptoms category significantly bothered the severe asthmatics. In emotional aspects, mild and moderates feel frustrated because couldn't keep up with others, whereas in social activities, moderate and severe groups indicated worse scores in school attendance, relative to intermittent asthmatics. In physical activities, severe and moderate groups reported lowest scores. A consistent finding was related to the influence of environmental triggers: Dust, cigarette smoke and air pollution impaired HRQL of all four asthma groups, relative to intermittent asthmatics.
Conclusion: Asthma lowers the health-related quality of life of Saudi adolescent patients, in terms of physical, emotional, symptoms, and environmental triggers, impairing mainly the severe asthmatics.
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Journal of Lung Diseases & Treatment received 247 citations as per Google Scholar report
