Parents correct on quality of life in young cancer patients

Parents can accurately determine their child’s health-related quality of life (HRQL) and this is especially true in those with cancer, according to a report in the May 15th issue of Cancer.

Parental report is often used to gauge a child’s HRQL, yet the extent of agreement between parent and child is unclear, Dr. Sean Phipps, from St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and colleagues write. Dr. Phipp’s team compared parent and child reports of HRQL in children with cancer and in healthy controls. The oncology group included patients currently receiving and not receiving treatment. Parallel forms of the Children’s Health Questionnaire were used to assess HRQL.The parents’ assessments of HRQL correlated strongly with their child’s on all 10 scales of the questionnaire. These correlations were stronger in the oncology group than in healthy controls. If anything, the parents of cancer patients tended to underestimate their HRQL. However, no significant differences in parent-child ratings were seen in the off-treatment cancer group and just two differences were seen in the on-treatment group. The results suggest that “parents and children are in agreement when reporting on the child’s HRQL,” the authors conclude. “This agreement was found to be greatest in the cancer sample, supporting its use as a meaningful outcome measure even when only one informant is available.”(Source: Cancer 2006;106: Reuters Health: Oncolink: April 2006.)