UC Davis

Abstract

A previous study demonstrated that the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, a health-related quality-of-life instrument consisting of physical and psychosocial domain scores, reliably differentiates between children with varying severities of traumatic brain injuries (N = 729) 3, 12, and 24 mos after injury. However, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory physical domain score alone may simplify evaluation outcomes in physical rehabilitation and clinical research when comparing different trauma interventions. Therefore, we performed a secondary analysis to evaluate and compare the discriminative capacity of traumatic brain injury severity for changes in the overall Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory or the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory physical domain score alone. We used linear mixed models to assess the change of outcome scores from baseline compared with arm-injury controls. Somers' D was calculated to compare discriminatory capacity with injury severity as a predictor of change in Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory outcome scores. We found that traumatic brain injury severity in children can be differentiated by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory physical domain score alone. However, at all follow-up time points, traumatic brain injury severity had higher discriminatory capacity for changes in the overall Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Our results suggest that the overall Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory should be used preferentially in children with traumatic brain injuries, although further investigation of the physical domain is warranted in conditions where physical injuries may predominate.