Funding outcome

Fractures (broken bones) are very common, occurring in up to half of children before the age of 16 years. After receiving care in the emergency department, most children with fractures suffer a decrease in their ability to function. This means that they are less able to able to carry out their normal day-to-day activities. They may have poor sleep, eating, play and school attendance. Adolescents have unique issues after a fracture, such as missing out on sports and feeling less independent. Parents are also affected as they miss work and other commitments to help their injured child. Improving these areas of function is an important goal for adolescents with fractures and their families. An obstacle to achieving this goal is the lack of a tool (such as a questionnaire) to measure this functional impairment. This makes it difficult for researchers to figure out how well new approaches to fracture management improve adolescents' lives on a functional level. Such a tool is urgently required and needs to be developed based on functions that caregivers and adolescents identify as important. This study will focus specifically on understanding how function changes for adolescents (12-17 years) with fractures managed in the emergency department. We will be interviewing adolescents and their caregivers to ask about how life has changed since the fracture. We want to understand and compare the experiences of these two groups. The themes that we uncover from these interviews will ultimately guide us in developing a new functional outcome tool. In this way, we can ensure that clinicians and researchers are measuring domains that are relevant to adolescents and their caregivers.