Abstract:
The purposes of this research were to examine the quality of life of school age children with obstructive sleep apnea and the relationship between personal factors (body mass index) health status factors (duration of illness, obstructive sleep apnea severity, sleep quality, mental health) and social and environment factors (social support) and quality of life in school age children with obstructive sleep apnea. Subjects consisted of 120 school age children with obstructive sleep apnea selected by multistage random sampling. Research instruments included questionnaires of personal factors, sleep quality, mental health, social support, quality of life which were tested for content validity and had Cronbach s alpha coefficient reliability of .78, .84, .82 and .75, respectively. Data were analyzed by mean, standard deviation, Pearsons correlation and multiple regression. Interpretation of sleep quality and mental health scores were differed from the other variables by which the lower of the score had a meaning of the better level of the variables. Major findings were as follows: 1. Quality of life of school age children with obstructive sleep apnea was at a high level. ([x-bar]= 2.65, S.D. = .16) 2. Duration of illness and social support were significantly positive correlated with the quality of life of school age children with obstructive sleep apnea (r = .286, .443, p<.05 respectively). Good sleep quality and mental health were related to the improvement of quality of life (r = -.488, -.529, p<.05 respectively). Obstructive sleep apnea severity was significantly negative correlated with the quality of life of school age children with obstructive sleep (r = -.358, p<.05). 3. Mental health, social support, sleep quality and duration of illness were significantly predicted the quality of life of school age children with obstructive sleep apnea at the level of .05. The predictive could explain 48 percent of the total variance (R[superscript 2] =.480). The standardized prediction equation is as follows. [superscript Z^]quality of life in school age children with obstructive sleep apnea [superscript = -0.296 Z] 1 mental health [superscript + 0.288 Z] 2 social support [superscript + -0.287 Z] 3 sleep quality [superscript +.196 Z] 4 duration of illness.