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Health-related quality of life in Egyptian children with nephrotic syndrome

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Abstract

Purpose

This research aimed to evaluate Quality of life (QoL) in Egyptian children with idiopathic Nephrotic syndrome (INS) in comparison to healthy children and children with chronic non-renal illnesses.

Methods

In this questionnaire-based study, 300 children were included, 100 with INS and 2 matched control groups: healthy group, and chronic non-renal illness group. QoL was assessed using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales) and the Generic Children’s QoL Measure (GCQ).

Results

All mean scores of PedsQL domains in INS group were significantly higher than chronic non-renal illness group and significantly lower than the healthy control group (p =  < 0.001) for all and similar results reported also regarding GCQ scores in INS compared to diseased (p = 0.02) and healthy controls (p = 0.006). Steroid-resistant NS group had lowest scores in all domains (p =  < 0.001) compared to other clinical phenotypes of NS group. The long duration of illness, higher number of relapses, high cumulative steroid dose, and high number of medications used were associated with lower PedsQL and GCQ scores (p < 0.001 for all)

Conclusion

This is the first study to asses QoL in Egyptian children with INS and correlates QoL scores to clinical phenotypes and complications of the disease. Egyptian children with INS need strenuous efforts from pediatricians and psychiatrists to improve QoL. Both PedsQL™ 4.0 scale and GCQ are simple, convenient, and can be used in daily clinical practice to asses QoL in children with NS.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the children, and parents involved, and also to the renal team at Mansoura University Children’s Hospital for being so supportive of the research. Special thanks to Dr. Nesma Abd-Elwahed, Dr. Evan Emad, and Dr. Rania Mohammed for helping in collecting data of patients and controls.

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This study received no funding.

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Correspondence to Riham Eid.

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All authors have no conflicts of interest. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were approved by Mansoura Faculty of Medicine Institutional Research Board (R.19.07.570).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Eid, R., Fathy, A.A. & Hamdy, N. Health-related quality of life in Egyptian children with nephrotic syndrome. Qual Life Res 29, 2185–2196 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-020-02438-0

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