Quality of Life in Children with Cancer
Thursday, 20 September 2007 - 1:30 - 5:00 pm
presented by Christine Eiser PhD

Workshop Objectives:

The attendee shall be able to:

i) appreciate the value of quality of life assessment in clinical practice,
ii) assess the merits of different approaches to measuring quality of life in children, and
iii) appreciate the meaning of differences between children and their parents.

Workshop Description:

Cancer is very rare in children, but advances in treatment mean that survival rates are now very good. Approximately 75% of children can expect event free survival. However, these survival rates have been achieved with highly aggressive treatments. For this reason, there is now concern about the quality as well as quantity of survival. There is a need to measure QOL systematically, in order to evaluate the efficacy of clinical trials, and compare results in clinical and psychological interventions.

We will discuss some of the obstacles to obtaining measures of QOL in children. These include children’s limited language and cognitive skills, their different perceptions and beliefs about the causes of, and treatment for illness, and competence to use rating scales. It has proved more difficult to measure children’s QOL compared with adults. In addition, it is clear that children have different views about their QOL and how it is affected by cancer compared with their parents. We will consider how to reconcile the different views of children and their parents.

Given these difficulties, assessment of child QOL is often given by parents on behalf of their child. Yet it is clear that children and parents do not agree in their assessments. Reasons for this will be considered as well as implications for clinical care and research. Finally we will discuss how far research on QOL and parenting can contribute to improved care for children with cancer.