Health-Related Quality of Life in School Children with Short Stature in Gharbia Governorate in Egypt

Background: Short stature (SS) in a child is defined as a child 2 or more standard deviations below the mean height for children of that gender and chronological age. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) reflects physical, psychological, social, cognitive, functional and behavioral dimensions of well-being and functioning as perceived by the person concerned, in a wide range of conditions between excellent and poor health.
Objective: To assess HRQOL for children and adolescents with short stature (SS).
Patients and Methods: In order to assess the HRQOL for SS patients, we studied 392 school children (preparatory and secondary) who meet the diagnosis of SS according to definition of WHO for short stature of child height below or equal 3rd percentile on WHO Growth chart in children of same gender and chronological age . Both sexes were included and age ranged from 12 to 18 years.
Results: According to family history, more than 2/3 of the children with SS had negative consanguinity. 1.5% was with positive family history of a similar condition and 15 % had positive family history of chronic disease. There was significant lower HRQOL in children with SS concerning physical, psychological and environmental World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) domains. The psychological domain is the most affected one. A comparison of sex groups (males and females) in relation to different domains among cases but it did not reach statistically significant difference.
Conclusion: Pediatric patients with SS have lower HRQOL. Social domain is the most affected among SS children.