Psycho-social determinants of quality of life in children and adolescents with haemophilia-a cross-cultural approach

Quality of life (QoL) of children with chronic conditions has received increasing attention in recent years. While frequent paediatric health conditions and life-threatening conditions are in the foreground, QoL of children with rare diseases such as haemophilia is scarce. While haemophilia-specific instruments to assess QoL in children have been developed, cross-cultural comparison of QoL and its determinants has not been addressed so far. QoL and potential psychosocial determinants such as coping were assessed in 298 paediatric haemophilia patients from six European countries demonstrating significant differences in QoL between countries. Results indicated that psychosocial predictors varied across countries, although life satisfaction and social support explained the highest proportion of variance and, moreover, superseded clinical characteristics. These findings suggest that intervention programmes should be geared towards enhancing psychosocial resources in children and adolescents with haemophilia.