Quality-of-life Evaluation of Healthy Siblings of Children with Chronic Illness

Abstract

Background: Chronic disease of children can cause changes in thehealth-related quality of life (HrQoL) of the family members.Aims: To evaluate the HrQoL of healthy siblings of children withchronic disease.Study Design: Cross-sectional study.Methods: The study included healthy sibling of children with chronicdisease (cerebral palsy, epilepsy, diabetes, celiac disease, hematologic/oncologic disease, or asthma) and healthy sibling of healthy childrento evaluate the quality of life. We used the Pediatric Quality of LifeInventory questionnaire; the physical health and psychosocial healthscores were calculated using the responses of the sibling and parent.The primary endpoint was the comparison of HrQoL scores of healthysiblings of children with chronic disease and that of healthy siblingsof healthy children.Results: This study included a respective healthy sibling of 191children with chronic disease and healthy sibling of 100 healthychildren. The physical health, psychosocial health, and total healthscores of healthy siblings of children with chronic disease weresignificantly lower than that of healthy siblings of healthy children(p