%0 Journal Article
%T Health related quality of life in Middle Eastern children with beta-thalassemia
%A Giovanni Caocci
%A Fabio Efficace
%A Francesca Ciotti
%A Maria Grazia Roncarolo
%A Adriana Vacca
%A Eugenia Piras
%A Roberto Littera
%A Raji Suleiman Dawood Markous
%A Gary Stephen Collins
%A Fabio Ciceri
%A Franco Mandelli
%A Sarah Marktel
%A Giorgio La Nasa
%J BMC Blood Disorders
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2326-12-6
%X We studied 60 thalassemia children from Middle Eastern countries with a median age of 10£¿years (range 5 to 17£¿years). HRQoL was assessed with the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 4.0. The Questionnaire was completed at baseline by all patients and their parents. The agreement between child-self and parent-proxy HRQoL reports and the relationship between HRQoL profiles and socio-demographic and clinical factors were investigated.The scores of parents were generally lower than those of their children for Emotional Functioning (mean 75 vs 85; p£¿=£¿0.002), Psychosocial Health Summary (mean 70.3 vs 79.1; p£¿=£¿0.015) and the Total Summary Score (mean 74.3 vs 77.7 p£¿=£¿0.047). HRQoL was not associated with ferritin levels, hepatomegaly or frequency of transfusions or iron chelation therapy. Multivariate analysis showed that a delayed start of iron chelation had a negative impact on total PedsQL scores of both children (p£¿=£¿0.046) and their parents (p£¿=£¿0.007).The PedsQL 4.0 is a useful tool for the measurement of HRQoL in pediatric thalassemia patients. This study shows that delayed start of iron chelation has a negative impact on children¡¯s HRQoL.
%K Quality of life
%K Thalassemia
%K PEDsQL 4.0
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2326/12/6/abstract