Quality of life in children and adolescents with anorectal malformation

Quality of life (QOL) is an important endpoint in health outcomes research, especially in pediatric chronic conditions. While some studies suggest that patients with ARM report a lower level of physical and psychosocial QOL, as compared to healthy peers, not all research shows this consistently. The aim of this study was to compare the QOL of Italian children and adolescents with ARM to the QOL of a large control sample of healthy peers. Parents of 109 children with ARM and 336 schoolchildren, completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Analysis of variances were used to compare the groups. Compared to healthy peers, children with ARM showed lower emotional functioning (F = 8,41; p = .004), social functioning (F = 4,9; p = .027) and school functioning (F = 14,7; p = .000). In the adolescent group, females had a worse QOL in the physical functioning domain (F = 5,01; p = .03) than males, independent of group membership. While children with ARM show a more impaired QOL compared to their peers, this difference does not emerge in the adolescent group. Our results are consistent with previous findings which hypothesize that while patients with ARM face more difficulties during childhood, by adolescence they may have learned to overcome these difficulties.