Exploring the influence of Post-acute Covid-19 on health-related quality of life (KIDSCREEN-10) in children aged 8-17 years

Conference:

SAPC ASM 2024 - Bristol

Talk Code:

4B.2

Presenter:

Claire Burton

Co-authors:

Claire Burton, Helen Twohig, Milica Blagojevic-Bucknall, Will Carroll, Carolyn Chew-Graham, Kendra Cooke, Kate Dunn, Alice Faux-Nightingale, Francis Gilchrist, Toby Helliwell, Oliver Lawton, Sarah Lawton, Christian Mallen, Benjamin Saunders, Glenys Somayajula, Danielle van der Windt, Victoria Welsh 

Author institutions:

Keele University

Problem

Covid-19 in children and young people (CYP) usually causes mild illness, but some experience longer-term consequences. Long-covid is a patient-derived term describing symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks. The overarching aim of the cohort study “Symptom Patterns and Life with Post-acute Covid-19 in Children aged 8-17 years (SPLaT-19_C ),” is to understand how Long-covid affects CYP, to better inform clinical practice and interventions. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of CYP has been widely reported. We now seek to more specifically describe the impact persisting symptoms of Covid-19 (Long-Covid) have on health-related quality of life, as measured by the KIDSCREEN-10.

Approach

CYP aged 8-17 years, registered at general practices selected based on variability in ethnicity and deprivation, were invited to participate by SMS. CYP with no recorded mobile number or who had dissent codes for research and/or messaging, were not contacted. Consent/assent was obtained electronically. Cohort data is being collected prospectively every 3 months, for 1 year and includes the KIDSCREEN-10 quality of life measure, symptom inventories, service utilisation questions and other biopsychosocial variables.

Findings

40,874 SMS invites were sent out from 40 general practices. Baseline data was collected between October 2022 and February 2023. At baseline, there were 507 participants (288, 56.8% female), mean age 13.11 years, and 41 (8.09%) describing their ethnicity as none-white.   To date, we have observed that the CYP identified as experiencing persisting symptoms following an acute episode of Covid-19 had a lower (more adverse) KIDSCREEN-10 score at baseline, than those who did not describe persisting symptoms (32.8 (sd 7.5), 39.6 (sd 6.3), P<0.01). We will further describe symptom profiles and their association with quality of life and use statistical modelling techniques to consider other potential associations with candidate predictors including age, sex, pre-existing conditions, severity of acute Covid-19, vaccination status and experience of long Covid in the household. We will repeat these models using 6 month data, whilst appreciating attrition may add bias to these results.

Consequences

Despite best efforts, recruitment of a diverse CYP cohort presented challenges and the results are at risk of selection bias. However, to date, the ongoing cohort study has sent a strong signal in its baseline data of a significant difference in the quality of life of CYP who have experienced Post-acute Covid-19. It is crucial to know how their quality of life improves over time, and what other factors may be influencing their experience. It is with this information that primary care clinicians and other health and social care providers can best support CYP. The impact of Covid-19 and Long Covid should not be underestimated and it is likely that CYP will continue to require additional holistic support. Longer term follow-up will help to describe the CYP journey with Long-covid, in terms of duration, severity and impact of symptoms.  

Submitted by:

Helen Twohig

Funding acknowledgement:

This work presents independent research funded by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (Grant Reference Number 517) and the NIHR West Midlands Clinical Research Network. CB, HT and VW are funded by a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Lectureship. CDM is funded by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Keele University, the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.