The objective was to develop and test an instrument that provides children, also of a younger age, with a quality recovery self-report measure after tonsil surgery.
Methods: The development of Postoperative Recovery in Children (PRiC) was influenced by Quality of Recovery-24, for use in adults. It includes 23 items covering different aspects of recovery. PRiC was developed both as a traditional text-based instrument and as a version where each item is illustrated by a photo. It was distributed to 260 children undergoing tonsillotomy or total tonsillectomy in day-surgery, to be answered on post-operative days 1, 4 and 10.
Results: In the photo-version, 27% of the children marked the answers on the instrument themselves, compared to 19% in the text-version (n.s.). Parents of 64% of the children in the photo-group reported that their child participated in answering the questions to a very high degree, compared to 58% in the text-group (n.s.). Some parents described that their children were very proud to fill in the instrument and return them by mail. The questions were mainly described as easy to understand and respond to, especially when illustrated with a photo. Some parents highlighted pain issues and asked for specific questions about what pain medication was given at home. One parent asked for the possibility to respond to the instrument online.
Conclusion: PRiC can serve as a patient-reported outcome measure for children. PRiC can also provide parents with a tool for communicating with their child about post-operative recovery, especially when using the photo version.