Health-related Quality of Life for Children With Leukemia: Child and Parental Perceptions.

BACKGROUND: The importance of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has increased in recent years. This study aimed to assess HRQoL in children with ALL, affecting factors, and the relationship between parent proxy-report and child self-report HRQoL. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 59 children and their parents (both mother and father) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Turkish version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 3.0 Cancer Modules were used to determine HRQoL. RESULTS: According to subscales of the self-report form, nausea and operational anxiety scores differed significantly by the treatment status; communication score varied considerably by the hospitalization length of stay; pain and hurt, cognitive problems, and perceived physical appearance scores differed significantly by the maternal chronic disease status (P<0.05). The presence of maternal chronic disease was significantly related to the total score of the parent-proxy report (mother) (P<0.05). There was a moderate correlation between total scores of child and mother (P<0.05, r=0.419) but not with the father. CONCLUSION: Children on-treatment had significant problems in nausea and procedural anxiety subscales; however, children who were hospitalized more had fewer issues in the communication subscale. Also, children whose mother had chronic disease had poorer HRQoL regarding pain and hurt cognitive problems and treatment anxiety. Given the importance of assessment and monitoring HRQoL in children with ALL, health professionals should be aware of how parents' chronic disease affects HRQoL. Psychosocial support should be provided to children and their parents, especially for those whose parents have a chronic illness.

Tactile processing in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Many obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients experience sensory phenomena, such as bodily sensations and "just-right" perceptions accompanying compulsions. We studied tactile processing in OCD by psychophysical experiments targeting the somatosensory cortex. Thirty-two children and adolescents with OCD (8 tic-related, 19 with sensory phenomena (SP)) and their sex- and age-matched controls participated in the study. After clinical assessments, two questionnaires were completed for sensory problems (Sensory Profile and Touch Inventory for Elementary-School-Aged Children). The psychophysical experiments consisted of five tasks: simple reaction time, choice reaction time, dynamic (detection) threshold, amplitude discrimination, and amplitude discrimination with single-site adaptation. The tactile stimuli were sinusoidal mechanical vibrations (frequency: 25 Hz) applied on the fingertips. Just-noticeable differences (JNDs) were found in amplitude discrimination tasks. There was no difference between the OCD group and controls in detection thresholds. However, the OCD group (especially young males) had worse amplitude discrimination (i.e., higher JNDs) than controls. Young OCD participants had reduced adaptation than young controls. Tic-related OCD participants and those with SP had higher detection thresholds than those without. Additionally, the OCD group reported more problems than controls in the Emotional/Social subset of the Sensory Profile questionnaire. The discrimination results show altered tactile processing in OCD at suprathreshold levels. This can be explained by a scaling factor modifying the sensory signal with decreasing slope at higher input levels to achieve normal Weber fractions internally. Quadratic discriminant analysis gave the best positive (76%) and negative (60%) predictive values for classifying individuals (into "OCD" or "control" groups) based on psychophysical data alone.

[The validity and reliability of the Turkish Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory for children 13-18 years old]. / Cocuklar Için Yasam Kalitesi Olçeginin 13-18 Yas Ergen Formunun Geçerlik ve Güvenilirligi.

OBJECTIVE: The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) is a modular instrument that measures health related quality of life, and investigates the physical and psychosocial functioning, unrelated to health, of children 2-18 years old. In this study, the objective was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Turkish PedsQL in adolescents 13-18 years old. METHOD: The study included 230 adolescents and 230 parents. The subjects were separated into 3 groups: 1. Healthy; 2. Has an acute disease; 3. Has a chronic disease. The reliability and the validity of PedsQL were computed. RESULTS: The internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach's alpha coefficient) was 0.82 for the child self-report and 0.87 for the parent proxy report. The PedsQL scores of both the child self-report and parent proxy report showed a statistically significant low to medium level of inversely proportional correlation with many indicators of morbidity and illness burden. There was a statistically significant and direct proportional correlation between the child self-report and parent proxy report scores. CONCLUSION: The PedsQL is valid and reliable for evaluating the quality of life of Turkish adolescents 13-18 years old.