Impact of recent life events on the health related quality of life of adolescents and youths: the role of gender and life events typologies in a follow-up study

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes

Research

Jorge A Palacio-Vieira¹  Gemma Vilagut²  Michael Herdman²  Ester Villalonga-Olives²  Luís Rajmil³  José Maria Valderas⁴  Montserrat Ferrer⁵  Jordi Alonso⁶  Sonia Rojas-Farreras⁷ 

[1] Agency for Health Information, Assessment and Quality, Barcelona, Spain;CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;Agency for Health Information, Assessment and Quality, Barcelona, Spain;CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;NIHR School for Primary Care Research, Department of Primary Care, Division of Primary Care and Public Health, University of Oxford, UK;CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona, Spain;CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain;Health Services Research Unit, IMIM-Institut de Recerca Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut Mar, Barcelona, Spain;

关键词: Differential Item Functioning;    Undesirable Event;    Pubertal Development;    General Population Sample;    Family Affluence Scale;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7525-8-71

 received in 2010-02-18, accepted in 2010-07-19,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMost studies on the effect of life events (LEs) have been carried out in convenience samples which cannot be considered representative of the general population. In addition, recent studies have observed that gender differences in the health related quality of life (HRQoL) impact of LEs might be lower than believed. We assessed the relationship between LEs and HRQoL in a representative sample of Spanish adolescents/youths, focusing on gender differences.MethodsParticipants (n = 840) completed the KIDSCREEN-27 to measure HRQoL at baseline and again after 3 years (n = 454). Follow-up assessment included the Coddington Life Events Scales (CLES) to measure LEs experiences in the previous 12 months. Respondents were categorized according to the amount of stress suffered. We calculated both the number of LEs and the Life Change Unit (LCU) score, a summary of the amount of stress inherent to the event and the time elapsed since occurrence. LEs were classified as desirable or undesirable, and family-related or extra-family. Effect sizes were calculated to evaluate changes in HRQoL. To assess the impact of LEs typologies, multiple linear regression models were constructed to evaluate their effect on HRQoL.ResultsGirls reported a mean 5.7 LEs corresponding to 141 LCUs, and boys 5.3 and 129, respectively. The largest impact of LEs on HRQoL was observed in the group of boys that reported to have lived more stress (third tertil of LCUs distribution). The linear association between LEs and HRQoL tended to be stronger among boys than girls, but the difference was not statistically significant. The effect on HRQoL was deemed important when undesirable events had been experienced. To have an important impact on HRQoL, 200 LCUs due to undesirable events were necessary in boys. In girls, slightly higher scores were necessary for a similar impact.ConclusionsA moderate association was found between recent LEs and HRQoL, mainly among those who experienced several undesirable events that correspond to at least 200 LCUs. No gender differences were found in this association. Results may be useful for identifying adolescents with particular health risks, regardless of gender.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Villalonga-Olives et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.