Abstract
Objective: To assess the degree of fatigue in children and youth after traumatic and non-traumatic brain injury (TBI and NTBI) and related factors.
Method: Follow-up study including patients with a hospital-based diagnosis of acquired brain injury (ABI), aged 4–20 years at onset and their parents. Parents and children (dependent on age) completed the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Multidimensional Fatigue Scale (PedsQL™ MFS), which measures general fatigue (GF), sleep/rest fatigue (SRF) and cognitive fatigue (CF). Additional assessments included the Child & Family Follow-up Survey (CFFS) and PedsQL™ 4.0 General Core Scales and sociodemographic and disease characteristics.
Results: Eighty-eight parents completed the PedsQL™ MFS 24–30 months after diagnosis, with 49/88 patients (56%) completing the child version. The median age of the patients was 11 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 7). There were 69 patients with TBI (16% moderate/severe TBI) and 19 patients with NTBI (16% moderate/severe NTBI). The median parent-reported and child-reported PedsQL™ MFS Total Scale Scores were 76.5 (SD = 16.4) and 78.5 (12.9), respectively (Spearman r = 0.450, p = 0.001). Apart from NTBI, increasing age and a single-parent household were significantly associated with more fatigue according to the parent-reported PedsQL™ MFS Total Score (and/or one or more sub-scale scores).
Conclusion: Two years after onset, in particular, the parent-reported fatigue after NTBI was considerable. Moreover, older children and children from a single-parent household were found to have higher fatigue levels.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.