Do mothers underestimate quality of life of their children with epilepsy?

Joint Event on 4^th International Conference on Epilepsy & Treatment & 4^th World Congress on Parkinsons & Huntington Disease

August 29-30, 2018 | Zurich, Switzerland

Mohsen Abbasi Kangevari and Ali Asghar Kolahi

Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Student Research Committee, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Neurol Disord

Abstract :

Children with epilepsy face many challenges not limited to seizures which affect their quality of life (QoL). Since mothers of children with epilepsy become involved in seizure-related issues of their children, their reports could be valuable as a proxy to measure QoL of children with epilepsy. This study reports whether mothers underestimated QoL of their children with epilepsy. Mother-reported overall QoL score was measured by 76 subscales of Quality of Life in Children with Epilepsy Questionnaire (QOLCE) which was developed by Sabaz. Beyond the 76 subscales, a question named QoL item was asked from mothers about their childrenâ??s QoL during the previous four weeks. In response to QoL item, mothers could choose excellent (score=90), very good (70), good (50), fair (30), and poor (10). In this study which was conducted during May to October 2017 in a childrenâ??s hospital in Tehran, we compared the overall QoL score and the score of QoL item. Participants included 223 children with epilepsy and their mothers. Among all children, 117(52.5%) were girls and the mean (SD) age of children was 6.8(6.0) years. The mean (SD) overall QoL of children was calculated 75.7(8.7) based on the 76 subscales of QOLCE. However, the mean (SD) score of QoL item among children was 52.5(15.4), which was 30% less than the overall quality of life score. Therefore, it could be concluded that mothers underestimated their childrenâ??s quality of life which could be due to low selfconfidence in assessing their children.

Biography :

Mohsen Abbasi Kangevari is a fifth-year Medical student at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. He has published two articles and has one article in press and three articles under review. He has also co-translated the sixth edition of “Immunology & Serology in Laboratory Medicine” into Persian. His main field of interest in research is Neuroscience and Public Health.

E-mail: mohsen.abbasi@sbmu.ac.ir