Usefulness of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire in assessing the quality of life of parents of children with asthma

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the quality of life (QOL) of parents of children with asthma and to analyze the internal consistency of the generic QOL tool World Health Organization Quality of Life, abbreviated version (WHOQOL-BREF). METHODS We evaluated the QOL of parents of asthmatic and healthy children aged between 8-16, using the generic WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. We also evaluated the internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha (αC), in order to determine whether the tool had good validity for the target audience. RESULTS The study included 162 individuals with a mean age of 43.8±13.6 years, of which 104 were female (64.2%) and 128 were married (79.0%). When assessing the QOL, the group of parents of healthy children had higher scores than the group of parents of asthmatic children in the four areas evaluated by the questionnaire (Physical, Psychological Health, Social Relationships and Environment), indicating a better quality of life. Regarding the internal consistency of the WHOQOL-BREF, values of αC were 0.86 points for the group of parents of asthmatic children, and 0.88 for the group of parents of healthy children. CONCLUSIONS Parents of children with asthma have impaired quality of life due to their children's disease. Furthermore, the WHOQOL-BREF, even as a generic tool, showed to be practical and efficient to evaluate the quality of life of parents of asthmatic children.