Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life and Functional Outcomes After Pediatric Trauma

Injury prevention and treatment advances have led to substantial declines in mortality in children. Although pediatric trauma mortality has declined, mortality remains the most common outcome measure for assessing quality and comparing treatments. It is critical to have generalizable approaches for measuring short- and long-term outcomes that can be used for assessing children with a wide range of injuries in diverse clinical settings, beyond mortality. The rationale for this proposed research was to determine if establishing the utility and feasibility of brief instruments that measure the relevant outcome of functional status at the time of hospital discharge would facilitate the evaluation and comparison of the care of children with a diverse range of injuries in a range of settings. Overall, this study aimed to develop and improve current metrics for evaluating quality within and between healthcare systems.

The TOUCH study found most injured children and adolescents returned to baseline functional status by hospital discharge. These findings suggested that functional status assessments can be limited to cohorts of injured children and adolescents at the highest risk for impairment.