Quality of life reporting by parent-child dyads in Japan, as grouped by depressive status.

Abstract

When children are unable to assess their own health-related quality of life (HRQOL), their parents can provide useful proxy information; however, minimal agreement between the two groups on this issue has been reported in some situations. In order to clarify the degree of accordance between the self-reports of children and the proxy reports of their parents on the former's HRQOL, 679 parent-child dyads, as grouped by their depressive status, were assessed by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). It was found that the self-reporting of the children differed significantly between those who were healthy and those who had depressive symptoms, whereas the proxy-reporting of the parents did not vary with their child's mental condition. However, the latter's reports did reveal notable dissimilarities between the healthy parents and those with depressive symptoms. The results indicated that the parents' perception of their child's HRQOL differed with their child's own perception and that the parents' perceptions were affected by their mental condition. Medical providers should assess both the child's and the parents' evaluations of the child's HRQOL, as the views of the parents could determine the use of health services and the making of decisions in clinical settings.