The children's atopic dermatitis quality of life index

Introduction: the impact of atopic dermatitis (AD) on quality of life has been quantified in children and adults using established quality of life measures. However, these are not suitable for use in infants under the age of 4 years, when AD usually develops. Objectives: to validate a new parent-generated quality of life questionnaire, which measures the impact of atopic dermatitis on both the infant and family. Methods: parents of 300 children with atopic dermatitis aged 7-months to 10 years were asked to complete a questionnaire on the children's life during the previous week regarding itching and scratching, mood change and sleep disturbance; interference with play, family activities; mealtimes, bathing and treatments. Every question was scored between 0 and 3. A children's behavioural "Check list" was also given to 71 patients of the study group and to 29 control children. Results: the highest scoring question of the questionnaire concerned itching and scratching, followed by child's mood, and sleep disturbance. The lowest scoring questions concerned mealtimes, and treatment. Patients with eczema suffered more than the control group. Conclusions: the quality of life measures should be used in conjunction with clinical measures for global assessments of disease impact. This work requires further validation but suggests that quality of life measures may be useful as outcome measures in clinical practice and research, because they give additional information. Their simple construction allows quick and easy use, which is particularly valuable in large-scale studies. Therefore, questionnaires represent a simple research method for atopic dermatitis children and their quality of life and the data obtained could be an important starting point for future studies.