Assessment of health related quality of life in pediatric patients with autoimmune hepatitis / Mariam Zaghloul Mohamed Daowd ; Supervised Mona Elsaid Elraziky , Eman Taher Alsaid , Engy Adel Mogahed

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Pediatrics

Aim of work: To assess HRQOL among pediatric patients with AIH and compare them to healthy controls. Patients and methods: This was a case control study conducted on 30 AIH patients and 30 age and sex matched normal healthy controls. HRQOL was assessed by using World Health Organization Quality Of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) for cases and controls and with chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ) for cases. Results: The mean ±SD age of the patients was 13.62 ± 3.06 years. Children with AIH showed significant lower HRQOL scores compared to normal controls as regards physical, psychological and environmental domains of WHOQOL (p = {u02C2} 0.001). There was a negative correlation between frequency of complications of therapy and WHOQOL physical domain (r= -0.501, P=0.005). As regards CLDQ we found a moderate reduction in QOLamong AIH patients. There were statistically significant lower scores in both activity and worry domains of CLDQ among females than males. Female sex was a significant negative predictor for activity and worry domains. Age was a significant negative predictor for emotional domain as older children were associated with lower emotional domain scores (P=0.039). Conclusion: AIH in children significantly affects HRQOL especially regarding physical, psychological and environmental aspects. Decreased social level and older age are negative predictors of QOL in these patients

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