Calidad de vida relacionada con la salud en niños y jóvenes con labio y/o paladar hendido residentes en el nororiente colombiano

Abstract

Objective: to assess health-related quality of life (HRQL) in 8- and 18-year-old Colombian children and adolescents with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) who lived in the nor eastern region of Colombia. Methods: we conducted a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 144 children and adolescents who filled out the Colombian version of the Kidscreen-52 questionnaire. Analyses were carried out on the entire sample as well as for sex and age groups (8-11 years and 12-18 years). We also estimated the internal consistency of the item responses via Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as a measure of reliability of the Kidscreen scores. We transformed the dimension score linearly to a 0-100-point scale, with 100 indicating a better quality of life. We calculated frequencies and proportions for qualitative variables and measures of central tendency and dispersion for quantitative ones. We used Mann-Whitney U test and considered a p-value <0.05 as statistically significant. Parents or caregivers signed the informed consent. Results: the mean age was 12.6 ± 3.2 years, 57.6% were boys, 56.9% were in secondary school, and 18.8% reported a functional limitation. Cronbach’s alpha value ranged from 0.81 to 0.84 for all dimensions. We found lower scores in the psychological well-being, self-perception, financial resources, social support & peers, and school environment dimensions in boys compared to girls, but the scores did not differ significantly; the lowest-scoring dimension for both was financial resources. Also, we observed lower scores in each of the ten dimensions in the 12-18 years group compared to the 8-10 years group, showing statistically significant differences in every dimension except financial resources, social support & peers, and bullying. The lowest-scoring dimension for both groups (8-11 and 12-18 years) was financial resources. Conclusions: children and adolescents with CL/P have good HRQL. It appears that they are capable of coping with the challenges of living with a cleft.