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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Xuan Huang, MPH¹, Kathleen W. Wyrwich, PhD², David A. Sterling, PhD, CIH¹, and Sheniz A. Moonie, PhD³. (1) School of Public Health, Saint Louis University, 3545 Lafaytte Ave, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63104, 314-9771649, huangx@slu.edu, (2) Department of Research Methodology, Saint Louis University, McGannon Hall, Room 230, 3750 Lindell Boulevard, Saint Louis, MO 63108, (3) Office of Epidemiology, Clark County Health District, PO Box 3902, Las Vegas, NV 89127

Quality of life (QOL) plays a very important role in the studies of chronic disease. It is one of the most important tools for evaluating healthcare outcomes. Despite considerable attention to individual item measures, there is little discussion of QOL as a theoretical construct. Structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology was applied to analyze a self-administered QOL survey based on the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire on school aged children with asthma. Seven out of nine items, reflecting two domains with symptom and activity limitation, predicted the QOL construct. Boys had stronger respondency than girls. The hypothesized negative relationship between child QOL and caregiver's missed workdays due to the child's asthma was verified. Age was a confounder of this relationship. The SEM approach is considered a complex, but more flexible and appropriate approach than more commonly applied methods such as total scores, mean analysis and regression models in QOL studies. In practice, to save on time and cost, modified questionnaires that differ from the validated versions are often applied. Incomplete data also occurs in the self-report process. Most SEM software packages provide approaches to treat with missing data. The most attractive characteristics of SEM are the no default model specification and the capacity to estimate and test the inferred relations between latent variables for specific population values. SEM is recommended as a standard methodology for study design and data analysis in public health.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify seven indicators that predict the QOL construct for childhood asthma.
• Recognize similarities and differences between SEM and other approaches.
• Assess the advantages of SEM approach in study of health-related QOL.

Keywords: Statistics, Quality of Life

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered