Health-related quality of life in non-paraplegic (ambulatory) children with myelomeningocele.

PURPOSE

Evaluation of the effects of ventriculoperitoenal shunt and incontinence presence on health-related quality of life of ambulatory myelomeningocele patients.

METHODS

The study group included 35 myelomeningocele patients, between 5 and 18 years old (mean age = 9.6), who were neonatally operated. All patients were ambulatory. The Child Edition of the Child Health and Illness Profile (CHIP-CE) used to evaluate the patient group. Seventeen patients were using clean intermittent catheterization and nine patients had ventriculoperitoneal shunt.

RESULTS

The CHIP-CE has five domains, and in satisfaction, resilience and achievement domains, significant lower scores were obtained from our study group. In terms of clean intermittent catheterization use, we got significantly lower scores on satisfaction, resilience and achievement domains (p < 0.05). According to the presence of ventriculoperitoneal shunt, we found lower scores in satisfaction, resilience, risk avoidance and achievement domains but the differences were not significant (p > 0.05). No significant difference was spotted according to gender and age.

CONCLUSIONS

Continence problems have important effects on life quality of myelomeningocele patients. Incontinency should always be considered as a major variable in health-related quality of life evaluations.