[Quality of life of children with home parenteral nutrition and of their parents]

Abstract

Thanks to the technical progresses during the last decade and to the active participation of parents, parenteral nutrition may be undertaken at home in patients with chronic digestive or extra-digestive diseases with serious undernutrition. This technique being highly sophisticated and demanding, we have undertaken a study of the quality of life of 44 children submitted to home parenteral nutrition and followed by the four registered French centres of pediatric nutrition. This study shows that home parenteral nutrition improves the quality of life of both children and parents as compared with the preceding period in the hospital. However, because of its constraints, it requires a careful evaluation of the parents' capacity to cope with, before to be undertaken.