The Impact of Childhood Acute Otitis Media on Parental Quality of Life in a Prospective Observational Cohort Study

Acute otitis media (AOM) not only affects childhood quality of life (QoL), but can also affect parental QoL. We adapted a previously published questionnaire on the effect of childhood recurrent ear, nose and throat infections on parental QoL for use with AOM and used it in an observational, multicentre, prospective study of children with AOM. The AOM-specific parental QoL questionnaire grouped 15 items into emotional, daily disturbance, total and overall parental QoL impact scores. The questionnaire was assessed using item-convergent and item-discriminant validity criteria and internal consistency reliability; and then used with parents of children aged < 6 years diagnosed with AOM at 73 practices in Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Bivariate analyses explored the differences in mean parental QoL impact scores by various characteristics. The questionnaire demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency reliability for the various components (Cronbach's alpha 0.82-0.97). There were 1419 AOM episodes among 5882 healthy children over 1 year, of which 1063 episodes (74.9 %) among 852 children had a questionnaire. Parents reported interrupted sleep (68.4 %), worry (51.0 %), altered daily schedule (44.6 %) and less leisure time (41.5 %) with a score a parts per thousand yen3 (1 = least to 5 = most impact). Factors that adversely affected parental QoL included: increased parental perception of AOM severity, younger child age and multiple AOM episodes. The AOM-specific parental QoL questionnaire demonstrated good performance across five European countries. Parental QoL was affected by childhood AOM proportionally to severity, number of episodes and younger child age.