Health-related quality of life and upper-limb impairment in children with cerebral palsy : Developing a mapping algorithm

Aim To: (1) investigate the relationship between upper-limb impairment and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for children with cerebral palsy and (2) develop a mapping algorithm from the Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children (CPQoL-Child) onto the Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D) measure. Method The associations between physical and upper-limb classifications and HRQoL of 76 children (40 females, 36 males) aged 6 to 15 years (mean age 9 years 7 months [SD 3y]) were assessed. Five statistical techniques were developed and tested, which predicted the CHU9D scores from the CPQoL-Child total/domain scores, age, and sex. Results Most participants had mild impairments. The Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) level was significantly negatively correlated with CHU9D and CPQoL-Child (r=−0.388 and r=−0.464 respectively). There was a negative correlation between the Neurological Hand Deformity Classification (NHDC) and CPQoL-Child (r=−0.476, p