Purpose: In children and youth, the prevalence of psychiatric disorder associated with chronic medical illness approximates 30%. The impact of psychiatric disorder on the management of scoliosis has not been well explored in the literature. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of mental health disorders in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).

Method: Adolescents being treated for AIS completed the Achenbach Youth Self-Report and one parent completed the Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist. Both measures are validated for screening of mental health disorders. The prevalence of mental health disorder in this population was estimated on the basis of the proportion that screened positive. Univariate analysis and logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the association between variables. A sensitivity analysis was performed to estimate the robustness of the results.

Results: Between October 2006 and February 2008, 61 of 126 adolescents completed the study (48%). Of the 61 subjects, 18 were treated with observation, 26 with bracing, and 17 with surgical intervention. Overall, there were 41 adolescents who screened positive (67%). Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that, of those who did not return the questionnaire, the prevalence of a positive screen would have had to have been less than 0.1% in order to decrease the overall prevalence to 30%. There was a statistically significant difference in the magnitude of the scoliosis between those who screened positive (mean curve magnitude 39 degrees) compared to those who screened negative (mean curve magnitude 30.6 degrees) (p=0.03).

Conclusion: The estimated prevalence of a mental health disorder using the Achenbach questionnaires in patients with AIS is 67%. This is substantially higher than the anticipated prevalence in either the healthy population or those with a chronic illness. The results of this study provide evidence of the high burden of mental health illness amongst those with AIS. The sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the results are robust despite the relatively low response rate.

Purpose: Tourniquet cuff pressures in paediatric patients are commonly set at standard pressures. Recent evidence on adult subjects has shown that safer and more effective cuff pressures can be achieved by measuring limb occlusion pressure (LOP) and using a wide, contour cuff. There is little evidence validating these techniques in children. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate if a difference in tourniquet cuff pressure can be achieved in a paediatric population using a wide contour cuff in conjunction with measured LOP when compared to a standard cuff and pressure.

Method: Subjects aged 10 to 17 years that underwent anterior cruciate ligament repair were included and ran-domised into either the control group or the experimental ‘LOP’ group using variable block randomisation. The tourniquet cuff was inflated to 300 mmHg in the control group or to the recommended tourniquet pressure based on LOP measurement in the LOP group. The surgeon was blinded to cuff selection, application and pressure throughout the surgical procedure. Immediately following the surgical procedure, the surgeon rated the quality of the bloodless field on a visual analogue scale (VAS). This study was powered as an effectiveness trial and intention to treat analysis was used.

Results: Following a planned interim analysis at midpoint, complete data was recorded for 11 patients (control group) and 10 patients (LOP group). The quality of the surgical field was not different between groups (p= 0.053). There was a statistically significant difference in mean cuff pressure between the control group (300 mmHg) and the LOP group (151 mmHg) (p < 0.001). We ran the same analysis comparing the LOP data to hypothetical control data of 250 mmHg and our results remained statistically significant (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The use of an automatic LOP measurement with the use wide contour cuffs can significantly reduce average tourniquet cuff pressures in paediatric patients compared to typical practice of 300 mmHg or 250 mmHg without compromising the quality of the surgical field.