title: Hemiparesis and epilepsy are associated with worse reported health status following unilateral stroke in children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Perinatal and childhood stroke result in neurological impairment in the majority of survivors, but less is known about patient and parent perception of function following stroke in children. Our aim was to characterize parent-proxy and child-reported health status in children following unilateral arterial ischemic stroke or intraparenchymal hemorrhage.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-nine children 2-18 years (30 girls, 29 boys) with unilateral arterial ischemic stroke or spontaneous intraparenchymal hemorrhage at least 6 months before evaluation were enrolled from a single center. The PedsQL version 4.0 Generic Short Form and PedsQL version 3.0 Cerebral Palsy Module were administered to childhood stroke subjects and parents. Generic PedsQL Inventory scores were compared between children with stroke and published data from healthy children. Reported health status scores for children with varying degrees of hemiparesis were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children with stroke had lower reported health status scores on the Generic PedsQL Inventory than healthy children. Children with moderate-severe hemiparesis had worse scores than children without hemiparesis on several measures of the Cerebral Palsy Module as reported by both parents and children. The parents of children with epilepsy reported worse scores on several measures compared with children without epilepsy, and the parent scores were lower on several measures for children with lower intelligence quotients. Agreement between parent and child scores was better on the Cerebral Palsy Module than on the Generic Inventory.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Children with stroke have worse reported health status than healthy controls. Degree of hemiparesis, epilepsy, and lower intelligence quotient affect reported health status on some measures. Agreement between parent-proxy and child scores ranges from slight to good which suggests that both provide useful information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Division of Pediatric Neurology, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, Oakland, California. Electronic address: Sabrina.E.Smith@kp.org.
authors.forename: Sabrina E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Psychology, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Gray
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vargas
authors.affiliation: Clinical and Translational Research Center, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Cucchiara
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Zelonis
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut; Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
authors.forename: Lauren A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Beslow
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D002543:Cerebral Hemorrhage / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010291:Paresis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: PedsQL; childhood stroke; health status; intracerebral hemorrhage; perinatal stroke