Health related quality of life of obese adolescents in Kuwait

Shurooq A. Boodai, John J. Reilly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)
24 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Obesity impairs health related quality of life (HRQL) in adolescents, but most evidence in this area has mostly come from western societies. We wanted to test the hypothesis that obesity impairs HRQL in Kuwaiti adolescents, and to test for differences in HRQL assessed by self-report and parent-proxy report.

In 500 Kuwaiti 10-14 year olds HRQL was assessed using the Peds QL (TM) with both adolescent self-reports (n = 500) and parent-proxy reports (n = 374).

Obesity was not significantly associated with HRQL in regression analysis. In a paired comparison of 98 pairs of obese adolescents vs. 98 healthy weight peers, impairment of HRQL reached significance only for physical score (95% CI = -1.5, -9.4), not for psychosocial score or total score. In a paired comparison of parent-proxy vs. self-reports for the obese adolescents, total score (95% CI = -4.9, -10.9), physical score (95% CI = -3.2, -11.0), and psychosocial score (95% CI = -4.2, -10.8) were all significantly lower in the parent reports.

Obesity is not associated with marked impairment of HRQL in adolescents in Kuwait, in contrast to studies in western societies. This may reflect cultural differences in attitudes towards obesity.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105
Number of pages5
JournalBMC Pediatrics
Volume13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Jul 2013

Keywords

  • agreement
  • health-related quality of life
  • obesity
  • sample
  • parents
  • generic core scales
  • children
  • PEDSQL(TM)-4.0
  • overweight
  • body-mass index
  • adolescent
  • kuwait

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