Pediatrics & Therapeutics
Open Access

Qualitative analysis of studies concerning quality of life in children and adults with anorectal malformations

7^th European Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery

September 14-16, 2016 Amsterdam, Netherlands

Marieke Witvliet

Pediatric Surgical Center Amsterdam, Netherlands
University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Pediat Therapeut

Abstract :

Introduction: Anorectal malformations are relative common congenital anomalies in pediatric surgery. After definitive surgery constipation, soiling and fecal incontinence are frequently seen problems. Quality of life (QoL) can be influenced by these problems. The last decades� QoL has become an important aspect in the treatment and follow-up of patients with anorectal malformations. This resulted in various reports concerning QoL. In order to deduce whether the drawn conclusions in the different studies are correct and can be used to adjust standard care for patients with ARM, a qualitative analysis of the studies was performed. Material & Methods: A literature study was performed in Pubmed, psychinfo, web of science and the Cochrane library (240 hits). After applying our inclusion-criteria and analyzing the articles, 30 articles could be used. A methodological qualitative analysis was performed and QoL outcome was assessed. Results: Six authors (20.0%) used validated QoL questionnaires. Four articles were longitudinal and had more than 1 measure moment. Eleven studies (36.7%) used only non-validated questionnaires and 8 studies (26.6%) used only validated questionnaires. Nineteen studies correlated fecal continence to QoL, 7 studies established no correlation. Three of these 7 studies used validated QoL questionnaires. All 12 studies, who did establish a correlation, used non-validated QoL questionnaires. Conclusions: 83.3 percent of the studies did not use validated QoL questionnaires. Conclusions concerning QoL often were based on functional outcomes, for example fecal incontinence. Longitudinal, high quality research on QoL in this group has not been done so far.

Biography :

Marieke Witvliet is Pediatric Surgeon in Netherlands. She has done her Fellowship in Amsterdam and Groningen and finished this in June 2016. From October 2016, she will be Consultant in Pediatric Surgery in the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht. During her Fellowship, she also worked at a PhD project about quality of life of patients with anorectal malformations or Hirschsprungs disease. This project will be finished in the beginning of 2017.

Email: m.witvliet@vumc.nl