Health-related quality of life in developmental coordination disorder and typical developing children

Abstract

Purpose: To analyse: 1) the differences in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) between typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) according to parents' and children's perception, and 2) the differences and level of agreement between parents and children's perceptions in HRQoL in both children's samples.

Methods: Cross-sectional analysis in 115 Spanish schoolchildren 4-to-7 years. Motor competence and HRQoL were assessed using the MACB-2 and the KINDL-R questionnaire, respectively.

Results: ANCOVA model showed that children with DCD children obtained lower scores in physical well-being, friends, school and total HRQoL dimensions than TD peers after controlling for covariates (p < 0.05). Moreover, parents' perception scores in HRQoL were lower in children with DCD than in TD peers (79.7 vs 84.8; p = 0.022). Student T-tests for repeated-measures showed non-significant differences between children and parents' perceptions in mean HRQoL scores, by motor competence categories. The intraclass correlations coefficients between parents and children's perception of HRQoL was moderate in DCD category (0.62; p = 0.024) and small in TD category (0.29; p = 0.049).

Conclusions: Children under 6 years old with DCD have lower HRQoL scores than their TD peers. No differences were found between children's and parents' perceptions in total HRQoL, although the perceptions of children and parents in DCD category showed a significantly higher level of agreement than TD children. Interventions aimed at promoting motor skills in school settings during the preschool age seem necessary to improve children's quality of life.

Keywords: Health-related quality of life; Motor skills; Motor skills disorders; Preschool; Proxy-report; Self-report.