Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in pediatric population after surgical intervention in traumatic lower limb injuries: A prospective cohort

OBJECTIVE: To assess health related quality of life (HRQOL) of children who had undergone surgical intervention after lower limb trauma. METHODS: A prospective observational study was conducted at KEMU and UCHS, from September 2021 to June 2022. Fifty children aged 5 to 12 years who had undergone surgical intervention for lower limb trauma were included. Patients whose parents couldn’t understand Urdu or English, or with polytrauma, needing amputation and/or comorbidities were excluded. Another fifty-school going, age matched children were enrolled as controls. After informed consent, two responses from participants and parents on PedsQL questionnaires were recorded, first one week after discharge and second after six months, assessing age specific quality of life in four domains (physical, emotional, social, school). Impaired HRQOL was defined as a score that was more than 1SD below the mean of healthy sample. RESULTS: Baseline HRQOL scores were significantly lower in patients and parents reported data taken at one week, overall difference of 39.13 in total HRQOL scores (effect size, d 2.76). Difference of 39.86 was observed between baseline and follow-up data taken from parents with the highest effect size (d=3.34) in physical functioning scores. There was a significant difference of 10.07 between the total HRQOL scores of patients on follow up and controls, and HRQOL patients’ scores were higher than controls across all domains. Parent reported scores were less than those reported by children in almost all cases. CONCLUSION: HRQOL of children at discharge after management of lower limb trauma was lower than age-matched control group. It, however, significantly exceeded controls’ scores after six months showing complete recovery.