Title : Quality of life indicators in children with post-COVID encephalopathy
Abstract:
Background: The new coronavirus infection not only affects various organs and systems of the human body, but also leads to deterioration in various areas of cognitive functions. After the 12th week of the new coronavirus infection, some children continue to have or develop various complaints that cannot be explained by alternative diagnoses, which in turn leads to a deterioration in their quality of life. The level of quality of life is an important indicator of the patient's future health. Determining the quality of life of individuals exposed to coronavirus infection allows us to determine the emotional and physical state of children.
The aim of our study was to study the quality of life of children with encephalopathy associated with COVID-19.
Methods of the study: Our scientific work is based on the results of a comprehensive examination of 80 children with a history of coronavirus infection and 20 neurologically healthy children with a history of infection. The age of the children participating in the study ranged from 5 to 16 years, the average age was 7.54 ± 0.35 years. Patients included in the main group were divided into 2 groups depending on the development of encephalopathy after COVID-19: Group 1 consisted of 50 children with signs of encephalopathy that developed in the post-COVID period, Group 2 consisted of 30 children without neurological complications in the post-COVID period. To study the quality of life, we used the international Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory - PedsQL™4.0 questionnaire. The questionnaire contains general scales describing individual key dimensions: physical, emotional, social and role functions.
Results: The quality of life indicators in children of groups 1 and 2 of the main group were statistically significantly different from those in the control group. The physical activity (PA) indicators in children with post-COVID encephalopathy that developed after COVID-19 were statistically insignificant (63.40) compared to their peers who had COVID-19 but did not develop encephalopathy (64.78). However, compared to the control group (93.17), both groups had statistically different quality of life indicators. The most statistically significant differences in indicators compared to the control group were found for emotionality (55.82) and role activity (57.54) compared to the control group (92.84) in children of group 1 (P < 0.05). As for the total scores, there was also a significant difference between Group 1 (59.27) and Group 2 (69.21) compared to the control group (95.05) (P<0.001).
It should be noted that the indicators of physical and role activity in children of Group 2 also have low indicators, which indicates a decrease in compensatory reserves of motor activity in children after coronavirus infection.
Conclusions: Thus, with post-COVID encephalopathy, there is an uneven decrease in intellectual indicators of quality of life, the nature and degree of which depend on the predominant localization of the pathological process in a particular hemisphere of the brain. In children with encephalopathy that developed against the background of post-COVID syndrome, as well as in cases where encephalopathy did not develop, the main disorders in children were post-infectious emotional disorders and significant disruptions in the functioning of key social roles.
