A pilot study of the quality of life in children and adolescents with psychological disorders

Objective: The present study examined whether the quality of life in children and adolescents with psychological disorders, as judged by the patients themselves and their mothers, differed according to the various ICD-10 diagnoses or the number of axes involved. Methods: 151 children/adolescents and 125 mothers, referred consecutively to the clinic, completed the Inventory for Evaluation of Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents (Inventar zur Erfassung der Lebensqualitat bei Kindern und Jugendlichen; ILK) by Mattejat et al. ICD- 10 diagnoses were grouped for evaluation. Results: No significant interaction between the five diagnostic axes and the several domains of quality of life was found. However, mothers of children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders and/or conduct disorder more often tended to judge their children's quality of life as unsatisfactory in all domains, while the patients themselves did not. Thus, rather than the children themselves it seems to be the children's environment which considers <<external disorders>> to be distressing. Conclusions: The authors conclude that the quality of life as measured by the ILK cannot be captured by ICD10 criteria. Apparently it is not so much the diagnosis itself but its subjective meaning that has the most essential impact on an, individual's assessment of quality of life.