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Faculty of Medical Sciences

Perceived fatigue in children and adolescents up to 5 years after burn injury

Dijkstra, F. (Froukje) (2015) Perceived fatigue in children and adolescents up to 5 years after burn injury. thesis, Human Movement Sciences.

Full text available on request.

Abstract

Objective. Fatigue is frequently reported in children after burn trauma, though knowledge on prevalence and related variables is lacking. It is acknowledged that measuring perceived fatigue requires a multidimensional approach including the physical, psychological and environmental domain, each possibly affected by individual- and disease characteristics. Therefore, this study aimed to 1) identify to what extent burned children experience fatigue compared to normative data and to 2) identify whether age, sex, total body surface area (TBSA), length of hospital stay and time post burn predict perceived fatigue. Methods. Perceived fatigue of 23 subjects was measured with the PedsQL Multidimensional Fatigue Scale (PedsQL MFS) child- and parent report, including total as well as general, sleep/rest and cognitive fatigue subscale scores. Normative data of Gordijn et al. (2011) was used. Independent samples t-tests were performed on group differences between burn- and healthy subjects. Pearson correlations were conducted to evaluate the association between child and parent scores. Multiple regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of each fatigue (sub)score. Results. The majority of PedsQL MFS child scores were higher than norm scores of Dutch healthy children, indicating less experienced fatigue. This counted in particular for general fatigue as well for sleep/rest and cognitive fatigue. The majority of PedsQL MFS parent scores were lower than norm scores on all fatigue (sub)scales. From the tested variables time post burn showed to be the only predictor of both total and cognitive perceived fatigue when scored by children. None of the other variables predicted any of the other PedsQL MFS domains. Conclusion. Children after burn injury did not experienced more fatigue of any of the domains compared to Dutch healthy children, based on PedsQL MFS scores of children and parents. Time post burn was exposed to predict fatigue levels, implying that over time children experienced more fatigue feelings than in short-time after burn. Age, sex, TBSA and length of hospital stay were not predicting variables of any of the fatigue (sub)domains.

Item Type: Thesis (UNSPECIFIED)
Supervisor name: Mouton, L.J. and Nieuwenhuis, M.K. and Akkerman, M.
Faculty: Medical Sciences
Date Deposited: 20 Apr 2022 10:29
Last Modified: 20 Apr 2022 10:29
URI: https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3130

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