Predictors of Self-reported Pediatric Quality of Life in Pediatric Sports Medicine Clinic

Background: Adolescent musculoskeletal injury and musculoskeletal pain potentially influence the quality of life of an individual. Screening adolescent patients for self-reported emotional functioning and quality of life is important and plays a role in clinical evaluation in the office setting.

Methods: Adolescents (n = 201), between 12-18 years of age, were screened for physical activity, emotional functioning, and quality of life in a tertiary pediatric sports medicine clinic. The screening occurred during the outpatient visit for musculoskeletal pain or injury. Adolescents self-reported pain and physical activity (in minutes per week). Anxiety and depression screening tools, the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 respectively, evaluated emotional functioning. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) assessed physical, emotional, social, and school functioning.

Results: The population consisted of adolescents with mean age of 15.43 ± 1.53 years and 56% were female. The average pain score documented was 4.2 ± 2.78. The average PedsQL score recorded was 80.04 ± 13.33. The physical activity recorded was 399.90 ± 275.74 minutes per week in this population. The emotional functioning scores collected for GAD-7 and PHQ-9 respectively were 3.77 ± 4.35 and 3.85 ± 4.35. Physical activity, anxiety, and depression were all significant predictors of Pediatric Quality of Life (p = 0.01, <0.001, <0.001 respectively); whereas, gender ( p = 0.53) and pain (p = 0.31) were not significant with PedsQL.

Conclusion: Self-reported quality of life is important to screen in a clinical setting of musculoskeletal injury and musculoskeletal pain. Factors such as lower physical activity, higher anxiety, and higher depression screenings were all predictors and had a negative impact on perceived quality of life. Conversely higher physical activity and lower anxiety and depression screenings positively associated with perceived quality of life. These screening tools can aide the clinician to simultaneously address the musculoskeletal complaint and provided the dialogue to address impact on the quality of life.