Children's perceptions about their health-related quality of life: effects of a health education-social skills program.

The perception about one's health includes feelings about physical and psychological characteristics as well as ways of managing interpersonal relationships. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the Health Education Program 'Skills for primary school children' (KE.TH.E.A.-Ministry of Education of Greece. 1998. Educational Program of Prevention: Skills for Elementary Students [Eκπαιδευτικό υλικό πρόληψης: Δεξιότητες για Παιδιά του Δημοτικού]. Athens: KE.TH.E.A, 1998) on children's perceptions about certain dimensions of their quality of life: physical well-being, mental well-being, moods and emotions, self-concept, leisure-autonomy, family life, financial resources, friends, school environment and social acceptance (bullying). Two hundred and eighty-six students of fifth and sixth grade, from schools of Northern and Southern Greece participated. One hundred and twenty-eight (n = 128) formed the experimental group and 158 the control group (n = 158). The experimental group followed the skills program for 23 weeks (one 45 min lesson/week), whereas the control group did not. The Kidscreen Questionnaire (Kim S, Laird M. An Outcome Evaluation of Lions Quest 'Skills for growing' Grades K-5, 1993. Available at: http://www.Lions-quest.org. Accessed: 2 April 2009) was applied to assess health-related quality of life. Results from multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated that children in the experimental group significantly improved their perceptions of physical well-being, family life, financial aspects, friends, school life and social acceptance. On the other hand, children in the control group significantly improved their perceptions for physical well-being, whereas they deteriorated them significantly for family life, mood and feelings and social acceptance. Also, children as a whole improved their self-concept. Furthermore, analysis of covariance showed that the experimental group had better perceptions of autonomy than the control group in the final measurement. It can be concluded that such a program could lead to the improvement of (i) physical well-being, (ii) family life, (iii) financial resources, (iv) friends, (v) school environment, (vi) social acceptance and (vi) Leisure-Autonomy and to stable perceptions about mood and feelings, dimensions of health-related quality of life.