Abstract
Introduction:
Parents/caregivers are a crucial part of young athletes’ support systems, as their beliefs can have a profound effect on the athletes’ treatment and recovery. However, it is unknown to what degree sports medicine patients and their parents/caregivers are in agreement about their function. We recently instituted the use of a Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) for all patients in our hospital system. In this study, we propose to use PROMIS scores to evaluate whether parents/caregivers have the same perception of their child’s function as the child them self. This is a report of our early findings from one site.
Methods:
IRB approval was obtained for this study. Patients already take PROMIS evaluations as part of their clinical care. After obtaining informed consent, one parent (ideally the primary caregiver) per patient at one visit took the parent-proxy version of PROMIS, in which the parent is asked to answer identical questions on the child’s behalf, without consulting either the patient or their physician. PROMIS domains included mobility, upper extremity, pain, and peer relationships. All parent-child dyads were through sports medicine clinic with an injury or diagnosis related to sports medicine. Patients and parents were compared using independent samples t-tests.
Results:
Twenty-four (n=24) patient-parent dyads were included in this analysis. Fourteen patients (n=14) were female and n=10 male. Sixteen patient/parent (n=16) dyads had similar genders and n=8 were opposite genders. There were significant differences between the patient and their parent for both the pain and peer relationship domains (p=0.02 for both). Parents rated the patients’ pain as more severe (M=48.1, SD = 9.3) than the patient rated their own pain (M=42.2, SD=7.3). Parents also rated the patients’ peer relationships as worse/more affected (M=53.0, SD=9.4) than did the patients themselves (M=58.9, SD=7.2). No significant differences were found for the mobility and upper extremity domains, p>0.05. There was no significant difference in concordance between same or opposite gender dyads, p>0.05.
Conclusion:
Early results of this study suggest that parents rate athletes with sports injuries as having more pain and worse/more affected peer relationships than do the athletes themselves. Further study is required to elucidate the impact of this difference on athletes’ performance and recovery.