Effects of Delayed Growth on the Quality of Life of Children Treated for a Chronic Disease and Quality of Life Study of Their Parents and Siblings

Chronic childhood diseases have sometimes strong repercussions on the everyday life of patients and their families, because of strict daily treatment regimens, physical limitation or effects on social life for instance.

The importance of considering quality of life (an overarching concept covering the effects of the disease on physical, metal, emotional, social and behavioural well-being) in the treatment of patients with chronic conditions is now well established.

Quality of life studies often focus on a specific chronic condition. Studies of multiple chronic pathologies are rarer. However, factors such as the severity of the disease, its prognosis, the constraints of the daily regimen, and the visibility of the disease can have a greater impact than the type of disease itself. Studies of specific chronic diseases have identified several factors affecting quality of life such as age, sex, disease severity, medically unexplained symptoms, family cohesion, socio-economic status, perception of the disease, the adaptation strategies used by the child or their family... It would therefore be interesting to study the effects of these factors on chronic diseases in general, irrespective of disease type.

In children, chronic diseases can lead to poor growth, which can of itself affect the child's quality of life.

Our proposal is therefore to study the effects of short stature on the quality of life of children with chronic diseases treated in our multidisciplinary paediatrics department.