Quality of Life of Children and Adolescents with Multiple Sclerosis-A Literature Review of the Quantitative Evidence.

Slávka Mrosková,Eleonóra Klímová,Ľudmila Majerníková,Ľubomíra Tkáčová

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168645

Abstract

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that also develops in patients under 18 years of age. The disease negatively affects the quality of life (QoL) of children and adolescents. We conducted a literature review. The aim of the review was to identify the QoL of pediatric patients with MS and assess the factors determining their QoL. Methods: We analyzed studies published between 2000 and 2020 in PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, and EBSCO databases. Results: In all, 17 studies were included in the review. The most common tool in assessing QoL was the generic module PedsQL. The range of mean/median global score of QoL was 53.8–81.7. The worst QoL was dominantly reported in the school and emotional spheres, on the contrary, the disease’s least determined area of QoL was the social and physical dimension. In particular, disability and fatigue were important predictors of QoL. Conclusions: MS negatively affects the school and emotional spheres in particular, so it is important to pay greater attention to these spheres of life of MS patients. As the review studies pay insufficient attention to the analysis of positive factors and their impact on the QoL of MS patients, research should integrate these phenomena. The use of MS-targeted tools in future research in the pediatric MS population is also appropriate.

Highlights

quality of life (QoL) factors in children/adolescents diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis (MS), age of respondents ≤18 years, and quantitative studies written in English
There are a large variety of instruments to assess the QoL in adult MS patients—for example the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life (MSQOL54), the Quality-of-Life Index—Multiple Sclerosis (QLI-MS), the Multiple Sclerosis Quality-of-Life Index (MSQLI), the Multiple Sclerosis
The review shows a slight decrease in the overall quality of life of MS adolescents

Summary

Introduction

The slight increase in the incidence of the disease in recent years is mainly due to better and more accessible diagnostic methods but can be attributed to a higher incidence of autoimmune diseases in developed countries [5]. Less than 1% of all pediatric MS patients have an onset before the age of 10 years. The female-to-male ratio is almost equal, after puberty, the incidence of the disease in girls increases dramatically [2]. The course of the disease (95% of pediatric patients have the relapsing–remitting course), the number of relapses (higher frequency in the first years after onset of the disease), the disability (reach disability milestones at younger ages), cognitive manifestations, or the incidence of fatigue (9–56%) differs in children’s MS from adult MS [6,7,8,9,10]

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