Quality Of Life of Children with Thalassemia in Alexandria

Thalassemia is one of the most common chronic inherited blood disorder encountered amongchildren worldwide particularly in developing countries. It negatively affects all aspects of children'squality of life (QOL) either physical, emotional or social functioning as well as scholasticachievement. Objective: Assess the quality of life of children with thalassemia at University Children'sHospital in Alexandria. Setting: The study was conducted in the Hematology clinic at the OutpatientDepartment of Alexandria University Children’s Hospital at El–Shatby in Alexandria. Subjects: Aconvenience sampling of 200 children with thalassemia and their parents who attended the previouslymentioned setting and fulfilled the following criteria comprised the study subjects: Confirmeddiagnosis with thalassemia, age ranged from 8 to 12 years and free from any other chronic disease.Tools: Two tools were used to collect necessary data namely; Bio-socio-demographic Data of Parentsand their Children with Thalassemia Structured Interview Schedule and the Pediatric Quality of LifeScale. Results: Approximately three quarters of children (71.0%) attained low QOL regardingphysical functioning. The vast majority of them (94.5%) had low QOL concerning social functioning.Additionally, the highest percentages of those children had low QOL in relation to emotional andschool functioning (87.5% and 82.5% respectively). Conclusion: Thalassemia is negatively affectingthe children's QOL. Where, the majority of the children and their parents reported low QOL and theminority of them had moderate QOL. Meanwhile, small percent of them had high QOL.Recommendations: Mass media should raise society awareness regarding thalassemia, and healtheducation sessions with updated simplified brochures and counseling should be conducted for parents.