Health-related quality of life of children and adolescents with one vs. multiple disabilities – Are there differences from the parents’ perspective?

ABSTRACT

Background

Multiple disabilities represent separate entities that cannot be reduced to the sum of disabilities or the main disability. This study compared the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children and adolescents with multiple disabilities and those with one developmental disability. We further assessed how comorbidities and guardianship type affected HRQoL.

Method

On a sample of 190 children and adolescents with developmental disabilities aged 2–18 years (mean age 11.19 years, SD 3.76), we evaluated HRQoL using the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scale (parent proxy-reports).

Results

Participants with multiple disabilities and participants with one developmental disability statistically significantly differed in all domains of HRQoL, except for emotional functioning. Multiple disabilities resulted in a lower HRQoL. Comorbidities like epilepsy diminished participants’ HRQoL. Guardianship type did not affect HRQoL.

Conclusions

Disability complexity affects HRQoL. Since each impairment increases difficulties in daily functioning, all existing disorders need to be considered when planning services for children with disabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiple disabilities
• health-related quality of life
• PedsQL
• parent proxy-reports

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. The ethics committee waived the requirement of written informed consent for participation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was fully supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia (#7744418, Genetic and environmental influences on psychological adaptation of children and adults – GENIUS).