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Parents with active lawsuits report worse outcomes in their children with brachial plexus palsy
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Parents with active litigation who have children with neonatal brachial plexus palsy reported worse mobility and function in their children compared to parents not involved in litigation.
“Litigation is associated with worse parent reports of children’s function and pain following neonatal brachial plexus palsy, independent of age, injury severity and the patients’ own report of their function,” the researchers wrote in their abstract. “Litigation status should be considered a confounding variable in the use of patient-reported outcomes in neonatal brachial plexus palsy research.”
In the multicenter, case-controlled retrospective study, researchers matched patients between 2 years and 18 years of age for injury severity who were treated at three tertiary brachial plexus centers between January 1990 and December 2011. There were 33 male and 42 female patients. Researchers compared patients whose parents were in active litigation to patients whose parents were not and there were 75 plaintiffs with active malpractice lawsuits. Each parent and child older than 11 years completed the Pediatric Outcome Data Collection Instrument (PODCI).
Patients in the litigation group reported worse mobility, sports or physical function and global function than the non-litigation group. Parents in active litigations said their children had more pain compared with those in closed lawsuits.
“Outcome scores simultaneously obtained from patients and parents differed in the litigation cohort, with parents reporting their children to have worse upper-extremity function and global function than their children reported,” the authors wrote in the abstract. — by Renee Blisard Buddle
Disclosure: Bauer receives grants from Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, and American Foundation for Surgery of the Hand. Cornwall receives grants from American Foundation for Surgery of the Hand and payment for development of educational presentations from Oakstone Publishing. Eismann is an employee of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Kozin is employed by Shriners Hospital for Children, serves as defense and plaintiff for expert testimony, receives payment for manuscript preparation from Korean Hand Journal and receives royalties from Green’s Textbook. Louden has no relevant financial disclosures.
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