Sir Gustav Nossal launched a new research centre at The Royal Children’s Hospital on Wednesday 8 March 2006
Solve! at the RCH is an initiative of The Royal Children’s Hospital and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute. It aims to research causes and improve outcomes for children with disabilities and will bring together families and the different professionals that care for these children.
According to information from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, almost 300,000 children in the 0-14 years age group (that is, about 8% of children in this age group) have a disability. Many children require life long care and intervention and their disabilities affect their quality of life. The team at RCH, headed by A/Prof Dinah Reddihough, director of the hospital’s Child Development & Rehabilitation Department, hopes that through research efforts, more will be discovered about the causes of disabilities such as cerebral palsy. It will then be possible to develop strategies to prevent them.
Coinciding with the launch of Solve! at the RCH, details of a new questionnaire to measure the quality of life of children with cerebral palsy will be launched.
The Cerebral Palsy Quality of Life Questionniare for Children (CP QOL-Child) was developed by researchers and clinicians at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Deakin University and involved a team of international investigators. It is the first questionnaire of its kind involving children with cerebral palsy which continues to be the most common physical disability in childhood, occurring in approximately two per thousand live births.
More than 300 Victorian families were consulted about the aspects of life that parents and children think are important, including friends, family, school, and health.
The CP QOL- Child can be given to children and parents before and after treatment to determine if an intervention has increased a child’s quality of life. This information can then be used to help parents and clinicians evaluate treatment options.
The questionnaire has generated much interest internationally and will be used in national and international research in Canada and Europe this year.