Pain and health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy

Pain is a challenge in care for children with cerebral palsy (CP). The majority of children with CP in Norway follow a surveillance program that aims to ensure good health and best possible quality of life. In her PhD Pain and health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy, Selma Mujezinović Larsen and co-researchers investigated pain in non-ambulatory children with CP who followed a surveillance program. Their primary caregivers provided information on pain twice, in childhood and adolescence, five years apart. The number of pain sites, pain severity and pain interference with activities of daily living increased while interference with sleep was unchanged over the period of five years. The prevalence of hip pain increased from childhood to adolescence. Higher migration percentage of the femoral head in the hip joint and higher level om impairment were associated with more severe hip pain. In general, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) had not changed from childhood to adolescence. Severe CP, severe pain in adolescence and low HRQoL in childhood were associated with low HRQoL in adolescence. The thesis also included an investigation on daytime contact and consultations with general practitioner (GP) in children with CP who follow the surveillance program and a comparison with the general paediatric population. Children with CP, as a group, met GPs as often as their peers did. GPs registered more administrative work in children with CP. Norwegian GPs coded pain less frequently in consultations with children with CP than in consultations with the general paediatric population. The findings suggest that pain assessment and pain management in children with CP should be improved.