The quality of life of children suffering from oncologic diseases in Lithuania

Joana Makari^{1, 2}, Apolinaras Zaborskis², Liutauras Labanauskas¹, Lina Ragelienė³

¹Department of Children’s Diseases, ²Institute for Biomedical Research, Kaunas University of Medicine, ³Vilnius University Children’s Hospital, Lithuania

Key words: children; cancer; quality of life.

Summary. Nearly 80 new cases of pediatric cancer are diagnosed in Lithuania each year. Since 2005, we have been conducting a study evaluating the quality of life of children suffering from cancer in Lithuania. The participants were children between the ages of 2 and 18 years, diagnosed with oncologic diseases during the period from March 2005 to March 2006, and their parents. The PedsQL^TM (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory^TM) was used. This questionnaire is specifically designed for investigating the quality of life in children between the ages of 2 and 18 years. The PedsQL questionnaire is designed according to the level of cognitive activity of children and applied to children of four age groups: 2–4, 5–7, 8–12, and 13–18 years of age. The questionnaires were completed by children between the ages of 8 and 18 years in addition to parents of children from all age groups. The families of 63 children suffering from cancer participated in the study. A total of 44 children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 18 years and 53 parents (mother, father, close relative) filled out the questionnaire. Data from the study showed that children suffering from cancer (irrespective of their age) in addition to their parents evaluated their physical health as being worse than their psychosocial health. The parents had the opinion that children from all age groups experienced negative emotions: the younger children were afraid of giving blood for tests, whereas the older children were worried about the future. In the oldest age group of participants (13–18 years), children felt disease-related fatigue more often than their younger counterparts.

Correspondence to J. Makari, Institute for Biomedical Research, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 4, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: joanamakari@gmail.com

Received 18 April 2007, accepted 3 September 2007