Health-related quality of life and influencing factors among migrant children in Shaoxing, China

Xu et al. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes Health-related quality of life and influencing factors among migrant children in Shaoxing, China Fengjiao Xu 0 Haiyan Xing 0 Wei Yu 1 Sanmei Chen 0 Hui Li 0 0 Department of Nursing, School of Medicine, Shaoxing University , No.900 Chengnan Avenue Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province 312000 , China 1 Institute of Epidemiology, Shaoxing Keqiao District Center for Disease Control and Prevention , Shaoxing city, Zhejiang province , China Background: Due to increasing export of labor service, many children following their parents leave from rural areas to urban areas in China. These migrant children might have psychological stress and lower quality of life. However, even up to this day, little is known about the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of the migrant children. This study aims at investigating their living conditions and exploring the influencing factors of migrant children's HRQoL. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 856 migrant children, aged between 7 and 17, was conducted in Shaoxing. The 4 PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales (Physical, Emotional, Social, School) were administered to reveal migrant children's quality of life, while demographic data questionnaire, Egna Minnen av. Barndoms Uppfostran and Social Support Rating Scale were used to reflect the influencing factors. Results: For 824 effective questionnaires(all items were completed without any inconsistency in a questionnaire and all the information in the questionnaire is believable), the average age of these children was 12.80 ± 1.91.The average years that they stayed in Shaoxing were 6.41 years. The average score of HRQoL was 81.13 ± 10.77, Physical Functioning was 84.83 ± 12.49, Emotional Functioning was 71.32 ± 18.34, Social Functioning was 86.28 ± 14.12, and School Functioning was79.28 ± 13.16. There was no obvious difference (F = 0.138, P = 0.711) between boys and girls as for PedsQL. The score of PedsQL did not show significant association with migrant children's gender and their school records, while school grade, the relationships with classmates, parental rearing style and social support showed significant correlations. Linear regression analysis showed that mother's rejection, subjective support, father's rejection, relationships with classmates, mother's overprotection and level of using social support were influencing factors on PedsQL of migrant children. Conclusions: Migrant children scored lower on health-related quality of life, which was associated with parental rejection, mother's overprotection, less subjective support, badly getting along with classmates and that they cannot use social support well. Migrant children; HRQoL; PedsQL; Parental rearing style; Social support Background With the rapid development of Chinese urban construction, more and more farmers leave their hometowns to the cities, hoping to find better employment chances. Some of them even bring their families to the cities, which is the typical characteristics of population mobility in recent years. As many children move to cities along with their parents, they constitute a new group called “migrant children”. According to China’s sixth population census in 2010 [ 1 ], migrant children aged 017 years amounted to 28.77 millions. Approximate 12 million migrant children were receiving compulsory education. These migrant children moved from rural area, which was completely different from urban area. During the process of adaptation to city life, their behaviors and inner thoughts have experienced a rise-and-fall period [ 2 ]. Admittedly, most migrant children’s parents engage in the relatively low-level manual labor, because their educational level is low and they have not received professional training [ 2, 3 ]. Therefore, they may have trouble in living within their means, and they have to work for such a long time that they do not have ample time to keep their children company, which may result in negative impact on migrant children. In fact, there are multiple studies focusing on migrant children, such as discussions about the receiving education rights, medical health (special health immunization), and the distinction between migrant children and local children [ 4–6 ]. Since 2000, many researchers have turned their attention to psychological status. They found that migrant children tended to have lower self-confidence [7], more anxieties, loneliness, depression and other emotional problems [ 8 ]. Nevertheless, few studies have revealed the comprehensive states of migrant children and how it took place. In order to have a better understanding of the living states of migrant children, in this study, we take advantage of HRQoL to investigate their conditions and try to find the influencing factors. Health-Related Quality of life (HRQoL) is a multidimensional concept that includes physical, emotional and social health dimensions as delineated by the WHO [ 9, 10 ]. As far as adult was concerned, their (...truncated)