Publications by authors named "Allan F Colver"

Objective: Investigate whether hyoscine patch or glycopyrronium liquid is more effective and acceptable to treat drooling in children with neurodisability.

Design: Multicentre, single-blind, randomised controlled trial.

Setting: Recruitment through neurodisability teams; treatment by parents.

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Both item response theory and structural equation models are useful in the analysis of ordered categorical responses from health assessment questionnaires. We highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the item response theory and structural equation modelling approaches to modelling ordinal data, from within a community health setting. Using data from the SPARCLE project focussing on children with cerebral palsy, this paper investigates the relationship between two ordinal rating scales, the KIDSCREEN, which measures quality-of-life, and Life-H, which measures participation.

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Background: Young people with complex health needs have impairments that can limit their ability to carry out day-to-day activities. As well as coping with other developmental transitions, these young people must negotiate the transfer of their clinical care from child to adult services. The process of transition may not be smooth and both health and social outcomes may suffer.

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Background: SPARCLE is a study across nine European regions which examines the predictors of participation and quality of life of children with cerebral palsy. Children and their families were initially interviewed in 2004/2005 when the children were aged 8-12 years (SPARCLE1); they were approached again in 2009/2010 at age 13-17 years (SPARCLE2). The objective of this report is to assess potential for bias due to family non-response in SPARCLE2.

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Background: Children and adults with impairments such as cerebral palsy have lower participation in life situations than able-bodied people. Less is known about their subjective perception of their lives, called their quality of life.During adolescence, rapid physical and psychological changes occur; although these may be more difficult for disabled than for able-bodied adolescents, little research has examined the lives of disabled adolescents.

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Purpose: The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires states 'to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, transportation, information and communications.' We explored whether this convention was respected for disabled children in Europe.

Method: One thousand one-hundred and seventy-four children aged 8-12 years were randomly selected from population-based registers of children with cerebral palsy in eight European regions.

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Purpose: The etiology of congenital cerebral palsy is unclear. Recent studies have suggested that maternal infection is involved. Indirect, but supportive, evidence for an infectious hypothesis would be provided by the finding of space-time clustering.

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This qualitative study investigated what disabled children thought most important in their lives and examined how well their priorities are represented in KIDSCREEN, a generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument. Participants were a subgroup of families who had previously taken part in a study of quality of life and participation in children with cerebral palsy (CP) using KIDSCREEN. This subgroup was sampled purposively, using children's scores on KIDSCREEN and demographic characteristics.

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Background: Little is known about the quality of life (QoL) of disabled children. We describe self-reported QoL of children with cerebral palsy, factors that influence it, and how it compares with QoL of the general population.

Methods: 1174 children aged 8-12 years were randomly selected from eight population-based registers of children with cerebral palsy in six European countries and 743 (63%) agreed to participate; one further region recruited 75 children from multiple sources.

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Aim: Medical and lay concerns about food allergy are increasing. Whilst food allergy may be becoming more common, fatal reactions to food in childhood are very rare and their rate is not changing. We sought to establish how common severe reactions are.

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Physical, social, and attitudinal environment may restrict participation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Here we discuss existing/possible approaches in order to identify and describe this environment. We used a critical review of evidence from the World Health Organization Literature Review on Environmental Factors; a search of electronic databases; and talked to specialists in order to find unpublished papers and 'grey' literature.

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The study aimed to determine whether degree of participation of children with cerebral palsy (CP) is influenced by where they live, as predicted by the social model of disability. Ninety-two per cent children with CP resident in Northern England and born 1991-1996 were entered into the study. Participation was measured by the Lifestyle Assessment Score and its six component domain scores.

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