Background. Current health services interventions focus on the treatment of the musculoskeletal impairments of cerebral palsy\r\n(CP). The goal of this study was to explore whether the severity of physical symptoms correlates with psychosocial quality of\r\nlife (QOL) among pediatric patients with CP. Methods. A sample of 53 caregivers of children with CP was surveyed and health\r\nstatus information was extracted from patient medical records. Descriptive analysis explored the association between the main\r\noutcome variable, psychosocial QOL (CP QOL-child), and patient demographics, comorbidity (e.g., visual, hearing and feeding\r\nimpairments, language delays, and epilepsy), CP severity (GMFCS), and the receipt of family centered care (MPOC-20). Results.\r\nChild psychosocial QOL decreased with increasing comorbidity but was not associated with CP symptom severity or anymeasured\r\ndemographic factors. Reporting high levels of family centered care (FCC) was associated with higher psychosocial QOL in\r\nunivariate analysis but was not significant when controlling for comorbidities. Conclusion. There is no clear connection between\r\nsymptom severity and psychosocial QOL in childrenwithCP. Comorbidity however is strongly associatedwith psychosocial QOL.\r\nFocusing on reducing CP comorbidities could have a positive impact on psychosocial QOL.
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