[ICD-10 diagnosis and quality of life. A pilot study of quality of life of children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders].
OBJECTIVE
The present study examined whether the quality of life in children and adolescents with psychological disorders, as judged by the patients themselves and their mothers, differed according to the various ICD-10 diagnoses or the number of axes involved.


METHODS
151 children/adolescents and 125 mothers, referred consecutively to the clinic, completed the Inventory for Evaluation of Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents (Inventar zur Erfassung der Lebensqualität bei Kindern und Jugendlichen; ILK) by Mattejat et al. ICD-10 diagnoses were grouped for evaluation.


RESULTS
No significant interaction between the five diagnostic axes and the several domains of quality of life was found. However, mothers of children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders and/or conduct disorder more often tended to judge their children's quality of life as unsatisfactory in all domains, while the patients themselves did not. Thus, rather than the children themselves it seems to be the children's environment which considers "external disorders" to be distressing.


CONCLUSIONS
The authors conclude that the quality of life as measured by the ILK cannot be captured by ICD-10 criteria. Apparently it is not so much the diagnosis itself but its subjective meaning that has the most essential impact on an individual's assessment of quality of life.
Schubert
M T
MT
Univ. Klinik für Kinder und Jugendheilkunde, Wien. maria_theresia.schubert@akh-wien.ac.at
Herle
M
M
Wurst
E
E
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology; D000293:Adolescent; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010555:Personality Inventory; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology