Inherent value of baseline measures when assessing the trajectory of health-related quality of life among children surviving critical illness

Excerpt

As mortality in most pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) in developed countries has fallen to below 3% [1], there is growing awareness that children who survive critical illness remain at risk for long-term morbidity [2]. Correspondingly, there is emerging emphasis on including post-discharge status as a sensitive, clinically meaningful, and patient-centered outcome measure in pediatric critical care research [3], especially among populations where mortality rates are low [4, 5]. Health-related quality of life (HRQL) incorporates multiple dimensions of potential morbidity into a single comprehensive measure and has been identified by both families and healthcare professionals as the most important outcome to assess among PICU survivors [5]. While many studies have demonstrated impairments in HRQL following pediatric critical illness [6‐11], there remains a paucity of data describing which factors contribute most to HRQL decline and how HRQL changes over time. …