Disclosures: Charles D. Kenyon, DO, MS, CSCS: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To determine gender and age differences in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) utilizing parent-reported Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) in typically developing children and adolescents without head injury.

Design: Retrospective observational data analysis. Setting : The Sports Institute (TSI) national pediatric concussion data repository contains demographic and clinical outcome data for both non-head-injured controls and concussion patients. Participants : 1080 (843 male, 237 female) typically developing, non-head-injured subjects from the TSI data repository with average age of 11yr, ranging 5-18yr.

Interventions: Comparisons (two-tailed Student T-test) between parent-reported PedsQL summary measures as well as sub-domain scaled scores across gender and age.

Main Outcome Measures: Primary Outcome: Parent-reported PedsQL Total Scaled Score. Secondary Outcomes: Parent-reported PedsQL sub-domain scaled scores (Physical Health Summary, Psychosocial Health Summary, Emotional Functioning, Social Functioning, School Functioning).

Results: Parents of females reported statistically significant higher Total Scaled Scores compared to males (93.4 vs 90.5 respectively, p < 0.05). In sub-domain analysis there was significant difference in Psychosocial Health Summary scores (p < 0.05), specifically across the Social Functioning and School Functioning domains. In age sub-group analysis by young children (5-7yr), children (8-12yr), and adolescents (13-18yr), parents of children aged 8-12 reported statistically significant (p < 0.05) gender differences in Total Scaled Score, Psychosocial Health Summary, Social Functioning, and School Functioning. Gender differences in young children and adolescents were not found to be statistically significant. Conclusions: In general, parents of females reported higher HRQOL as measured by PedsQL. This gender difference was statistically significant in Total Scaled Scores and psychosocial domains, but not in the physical health domain for the population. When analyzed by age this pattern was significant for the child age group (8-12yr) but was not significant for young children (5-7yr) or adolescents (13-18yr), suggesting a non-linear pattern to HRQOL throughout pediatric development. Clinically, understanding these typical gender differences provides additional insight when interpreting the impact of concussion and other injuries on HRQOL.

Level of Evidence: Level III

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/gender-differences-in-parent-reported-pediatric-quality-of-life-inventory-pedsql-among-non-head-injured-children-from-the-sports-institute-national-pediatric-concussion-data-repository/