EQUIP: Evaluating quality of life in paediatric surgery
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating quality of life in paediatric surgery (EQUIP): A multi-centre cohort study to understand more about the individualised quality of life of children following treatment for surgical conditions
IRAS ID
311824
Contact name
Marian Knight
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford / Research Governance, Ethics and Assurance
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Every year in the UK about half a million children undergo surgery. Until recently, little was known about how to decide whether those surgeries had been successful or not. Recent work however has shown that to parents and healthcare professionals, the quality of a child’s life after treatment for a surgical condition is as important as the amount of time they live after that treatment. When investigating which treatments work well, and which do not work well for a range of surgical conditions, it is therefore important that the impact of these treatments on a child’s quality of life is taken account of.
Currently, a child’s quality of life is usually assessed using a questionnaire which asks only basic questions such as how hard it is for a child to walk or lift things, or whether they feel sad or angry. A score is then generated for their overall quality of life based on answers to these questions. This type of questionnaire assumes that the things that are important for quality of life, are the same for all children. An alternative method of assessing quality of life is with an individualised quality of life measure such as one called the SEIQoL-DW. This allows children, or their parents, to define the things that are important to the child, and therefore determine the child’s quality of life. The child’s overall quality of life is then assessed using these things rather than by using the same basic questions for all children.
The aim of this study is to use the SEIQoL-DW to understand more about what impacts the quality of a child’s life after they have been treated for a surgical condition, so that in the future, the SEIQoL-DW can be used to understand more about which treatments work well, and which don’t.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
23/NI/0038
Date of REC Opinion
29 Mar 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion