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Assessing quality of life: mother–child agreement in depressed and non-depressed Hungarian

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Abstract

Purpose

An important question in child psychiatry is the agreement between parents and children. We studied mother–child concordance about the quality of life of children (QoL). We hypothesized that mothers of depressed children rate lower QoL than children for themselves while mothers of non-depressed children rate better QoL; that inter-informant agreement is higher in the non-depressed sample; and finally that agreement increases with age of the child.

Methods

QoL of depressed children (N = 248, mean age 11.45 years, SD 2.02) were compared to that of non-depressed children (N = 1695, mean age 10.34 years, SD 2.19). QoL was examined by a 7 item questionnaire (ILK).

Results

Mothers of depressed children rated lower QoL than their children while mothers of nondepressed children rated higher QoL than their children. Agreement was low in both samples but higher in the controls. Inter-informant agreement was only influenced by depression.

Conclusions

Our results show that mothers relate more serious negative effects to childhood depression than their children and rate less problems for their non-depressed children compared to self-reports. Mother–child agreement is negatively influenced by depression which further stresses the importance of obtaining reports from the child and at least one parent in order to understand the subjective experiences caused by the illness.

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Acknowledgement

This work was partly supported by National Institute of Mental Health Program Project grant, MH 56193.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Child Psychiatry, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

    Eniko Kiss MD, Krisztina Kapornai MD, Ildikó Baji MD, László Mayer MD & Ágnes Vetró MD, PhD

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  1. Eniko Kiss MD
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  2. Krisztina Kapornai MD
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  3. Ildikó Baji MD
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  4. László Mayer MD
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  5. Ágnes Vetró MD, PhD
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Correspondence to Eniko Kiss MD.

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Kiss, E., Kapornai, K., Baji, I. et al. Assessing quality of life: mother–child agreement in depressed and non-depressed Hungarian. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 18, 265–273 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0727-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-008-0727-3

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