Hu SJ, Li Y, Yang QH, Yang K, Jun JH, Cui YH, Lei TY. Family functioning mediation in tic severity and quality of life for children with Tourette syndrome. World J Psychiatry 2024; 14(11): 1641-1651 [PMID: 39564170 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i11.1641]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Tian-Yuan Lei, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children’s Health, No. 56 Nanlishi Road, Beijing 100045, China. tianyuanlei@bch.com.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Nov 19, 2024; 14(11): 1641-1651 Published online Nov 19, 2024. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i11.1641
Family functioning mediation in tic severity and quality of life for children with Tourette syndrome
Shu-Jin Hu, Ying Li, Qing-Hao Yang, Kai Yang, Jin-Hyun Jun, Yong-Hua Cui, Tian-Yuan Lei
Shu-Jin Hu, Ying Li, Qing-Hao Yang, Kai Yang, Jin-Hyun Jun, Yong-Hua Cui, Tian-Yuan Lei, Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children’s Health, Beijing 100045, China
Co-corresponding authors: Yong-Hua Cui and Tian-Yuan Lei.
Author contributions: Hu SJ, Li Y, Cui YH, and Lei TY designed the research study; Hu SJ, Li Y, Yang QH, Yang K, and Jun JH performed the research; Yang K and Lei TY contributed new reagents and analytic tools; Hu SJ and Lei TY analyzed the date and wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approve the final manuscript. Lei TY and Cui YH contributed to this manuscript equally, they are co-corresponding authors of this manuscript.
Supported bythe National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82171538; and the Beijing High Level Public Health Technology Talent Construction Project, No. Discipline Leader-01-07.
Institutional review board statement: This investigation was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of Capital Medical University Hospital, No. [2023]-E-05-R.
Informed consent statement: The need for patient consent was waived due to the retrospective nature of the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tian-Yuan Lei, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children’s Health, No. 56 Nanlishi Road, Beijing 100045, China. tianyuanlei@bch.com.cn
Received: April 10, 2024 Revised: September 20, 2024 Accepted: October 15, 2024 Published online: November 19, 2024 Processing time: 211 Days and 5.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Tourette syndrome (TS) is recognized as a neurodevelopmental disorder profoundly influenced by familial factors, particularly family functioning. However, the relationship among family functioning, tic severity, and quality of life in individuals with TS during childhood and adolescence remains unclear. We hypothesized that family functioning plays a role in the association between the severity of TS and quality of life in children.
AIM
To determine the role of family functioning in the relationship between TS severity and quality of life.
METHODS
This study enrolled 139 children (male/female = 113/26) with TS. We assessed tic severity using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale, quality of life via the Tourette Syndrome Quality of Life Scale, and family functioning through the Family Assessment Device. Our analysis focused on correlating these measures and exploring the mediating role of family functioning in the relationship between tic severity and quality of life. Additionally, we examined if this mediating effect varied by gender or the presence of comorbidity.
RESULTS
We found that family communication dysfunction had a significant mediating effect between tic severity and both psychological symptoms (indirect effect: Β = 0.0038, 95% confidence interval: 0.0006-0.0082) as well as physical and activities of daily living impairment (indirect effect: Β = 0.0029, 95% confidence interval: 0.0004-0.0065). For vocal tic severity, this mediation was found to be even more pronounced. Additionally, in male participants and those without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the mediating effect of family communication dysfunction was still evident.
CONCLUSION
Our study highlights the impact of family functioning on the tic severity and the quality of life in children. This relationship is influenced by gender and comorbid conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Core Tip: This was a retrospective study using a mediating effect model designed to investigate the role of family functioning in the relationship between Tourette syndrome severity and quality of life in children. The abnormal family communication function significantly mediated the relationship between the severity of Tourette syndrome and the quality of life of children. The effect was different between boys and girls and between children with and without attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
