• Altamiro Costa-Pereira, Francisco Cunha, Teresa Mota, Armando Teixeira-Pinto, Leonor Carvalho, João Estrada, António Marques, and Luís Almeida-Santos.
• Unidade de Cuidados Intensivos Pediátricos, UAG-MC Hospital S. João, Porto, Portugal. francisco.a.cunha@sapo.pt
• Pediatr Crit Care Me. 2013 Jan 1;14(1):e8-15.

ObjectiveTo determine predictors of change in the health-related quality of life in survivors to pediatric intensive care, based on preadmission health status, demographic characteristics, and physiological variables.DesignProspective evaluation of health-related quality of life at PICU admission and after 6 months.SettingThree PICUs at tertiary hospitals.PatientsChildren aged ≥ 6 yrs admitted to the PICUs between May 2002 and June 2004.InterventionsHealth Utilities Index Mark 3 questionnaire was administered to a child proxy by direct interview at admission and by telephone interview at follow-up.Measurements And Main ResultsFrom the 517 eligible admissions, 44 (8.5%) children died in the PICU and 252 had a follow-up assessment. From a list of 115 analyzed variables, 29 (25%) and 30 (26%) were selected (p < .10) for a multivariable model predicting improvement and deterioration of the health-related quality of life, respectively. In the final models, only mechanical ventilation, preadmission global score of Health Utilities Index Mark 3, and preadmission Health Utilities Index Mark 3 pain attribute were associated with improvement; and main diagnostic group, preadmission Health Utilities Index Mark 3 emotion attribute, and preadmission Health Utilities Index Mark 3 pain attribute were associated with deterioration in the health-related quality of life.ConclusionsThe most common variables used to compute probability of death algorithms were not capable of predicting health-related quality of life in survivors to pediatric intensive care. The preadmission health-related quality of life and trauma admissions are important variables to predict change in the health-related quality of life of children surviving to pediatric intensive care.

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