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Chagas P.1, Souza N.2, Marques R.3, Defilipo É.4, Frônio J.5, Ribeiro L.C.6
1Federal University of Juiz de Fora/ Physical Therapy Faculty, Physical Therapy of the Old, Adult and Maternal-infant, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, 2President Antonio Carlos University, Physical Therapy Course, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, 3Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Physical Therapy Faculty, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, 4Federal University of Juiz de Fora - Campus Governador Valadares/ Life Sciences Institute, Physical Therapy Department, Governador Valadares, Brazil, 5Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Physical Therapy Faculty, Physical Therapy of the Old, Adult and Maternal-Infant, Juiz de Fora, Brazil, 6Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Statistic Department, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
Background: Functional skills are related to the execution of functional activities and performance of daily tasks by the child and his family.
Purpose: To assess factors related to the functional capability and performance of children aged between five and seven years.
Methods: A descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study of children aged five to seven years of age and their caregivers. The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) was used to evaluate functional capability and performance. All caregivers signed the consent form. The Functional Skills section of the PEDI provided summary scores that reflect the childs current repertoire of daily life skills in each of three domains (Self-Care, Mobility, and Social Function), while the Caregiver Assistance section provided a summary of the extent to which the childs overall performance of complex daily tasks such as dressing or moving around is supported by help from a caregiver. The raw score of PEDI was converted to normative score. Values below 30% was considered delayed performance and values higher than 70% was considered better performance. Linear regression analysis was used to verify the association of biological and environmental variables with functionality. The associated factors that showed p≤0.05 in the univariate analysis of variance, were eligible to compose the regression models.
Results: The study included 150 children and their caregivers. In the Caregiver Assistance section, children were 31.3% superior in performance of Social Function domain and delayed in Caregiver Assistance and Functional Skills Mobility domain, respectively. In linear regression analysis, significant association was observed between the number of siblings and gender in Functional Skills Self-care domain (p=0.001). The Functional Skills Mobility domain showed significant association with mean gestational age (p=0.012) and Social Function domains with the number of siblings (p=0.034). Otherwise, the Self-Care domain in the Caregiver Assistance section showed significant association with perinatal complications, actual disease and number of siblings (p 0.0001). Gestational and birth weight showed significant association with Mobility in Caregiver Assistance section (p=0.014). Finally, the Social Function in Caregiver Assistance section was significantly associated with actual disease and perinatal complications (p=0.019).
Conclusion(s): The results of this study indicate that multiple factors may be related to the functional capability and performance of children aged five to seven years, with emphasis on biological factors (such as gender, gestational age, birth weight, presence of diseases and complications in the perinatal period) and environmental factors (as the number of siblings).
Implications: These results highlight the importance of identifying children exposed to multiple risk factors, in order to support appropriate assessment and intervention strategies and expand health actions directed to this group.
Funding acknowledgements: PROPESQ and CNPq research grants
Topic: Paediatrics
Ethics approval: Committee of Ethics of Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil (875.927; november 2014).
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
