Abstract
Introduction
The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) is a tool used to measure health-related quality of life in children and adolescents. The PedsQL measures physical, emotional, social, and academic function. Our burn camp program provides comprehensive programming in a supportive, challenging environment to enhance care of a child with a burn injury. Our camp addresses: isolation, social skill development, body image, negative beliefs, risk-taking, and academic challenges. The lessons learned at camp are unique and build lifelong success. The PedsQL will provide data on changes that are being made with our campers over time. We hypothesize positive changes in PedsQL scores with the addition of burn camp.
Methods
The PedsQL consists of forms for children ages 2–4, 5–7, 8–12, and 13–18. Pediatric self-report is measured in children and adolescents ages 5–18. There is a separate parent proxy-report of the child’s health-related quality of life for ages 2–18. Before camp begins, parents are mailed the parent report to fill out and are due back prior to the first day of camp. Campers fill out the form on the first day of camp. Data is entered into an excel spreadsheet. Follow up parent and child/adolescent surveys are then sent out 3 months post camp. Three month follow up data is entered and compared to original scores. Three scores are generated from the data including total score, psychosocial score, and physical health score. A higher score indicates a better Health-Related Quality of Life.
Results
We trialed the use of the PedsQL in our adolescent burn camp, consisting of 23 campers ages 13–18. We received 8 (34%) follow up surveys. The results of these scores are trending in a positive direction. We used the PedsQL for our burn camp program consisting of 77 campers ages 8–18. We will obtain 3 month follow up data by Dec 2019 and will assess the data and report the changes.
Conclusions
The PedsQL is a tool that can help our camp program track changes/progress in our campers in the areas listed above. We have seen positive changes in our small sample size and predict we will see positive changes with our larger camp population in the next few months.
Applicability of Research to Practice
Using outcome measures for medical specialty camps is necessary and currently lacking in the literature. The PedsQL tool is used in healthy, acute and chronic health conditions, making it applicable for burn camp programs. The PedsQL has established norms for the healthy population for benchmarking purposes and community health comparisons. This tool will help our burn camp program assess the psychosocial, physical and academic growth of our campers.
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