Quality of Life Following Childhood Bacterial Meningitis in Luanda, Angola

BACKGROUND: Survivors of childhood bacterial meningitis (BM) from low-income countries are at increased risk of sequelae. How BM survivors’ daily life is affected in the developing world, is not known. We aimed to investigate the quality of life among pediatric survivors of BM in Luanda, Angola assessing both physical and psychosocial health-related quality of life (HRQOL). METHODS: Survivors from two BM treatment trials (ISRCTN62824827; NCT01540838) from Luanda Children’s Hospital were called to follow-up visits in January 2017 with a median duration of 26 months after BM. We administered Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory(TM) (PedsQL(TM)) 4.0 Generic Core Scales and Infant Scales, designed to measure HRQOL in children, to patients and/or parents. The generic core scales were administered to 64 and 32 families, and the infant scores to 8 and 3 care-givers of patients and controls, respectively. We used age-appropriate versions of the scales. We calculated the total, physical and psychosocial HRQOL domains. To determine internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated for generic score scales. RESULTS: In all, 73 survivors of BM and 36 control children participated. 18 (51%) of controls were siblings of survivors; others visited the hospital for vaccinations. The median age of children was 6 years (81 months, IQR 85 months). Survivors of BM scored significantly lower on the PedsQL(TM) 4.0 generic core and infant scales than control children according to parent proxy reports indicating lower HRQOL (total score 81.04 vs. 91.30, P = 0.001; physical health 87.50 vs. 100.00, P = 0.0002; psychosocial health 79.06 vs. 90.00, P = 0.001). Child self-report scores were also lower within BM survivors who were able to answer; however, the difference was not statistically significant. In total sample of survivors, the Cronbach’s alphas reached sufficient reliability of 0.70 in all three domains calculated (total score, α=0.79; physical health α= 0.77; psychosocial health α= 0.89 for child self-reports and α=0.91, α=0.91, and α=0.84 for parent proxy-reports, respectively). CONCLUSION: The survivors of pediatric BM endure a clearly suboptimal quality of life compared with siblings and other control children. HRQOL can be measured reliably among BM patients in developing country setting. DISCLOSURES: All authors: No reported disclosures.