Research Studies

Pediatric pain, especially in the hemophilia population, is under-recognized and under-treated. Barriers to adequate treatment include lack of knowledge, variability of practice, and outmoded beliefs. All of these factors lead to a culture of slow to no change in practice patterns. Health care providers need current, state-ofthe- art education and tools to assist them in developing the skills required to assess and manage pain in children. Children are often given minimal or no analgesia for procedures that would be treated aggressively in adults. Although more is now known about pain management in children, this knowledge has not been widely or effectively translated into routine pediatric clinical practice, including the practice of most HTCs. In the bleeding disorders community, especially for those with hemophilia, children begin to experience frequent pokes secondary to frequent factor infusions and blood draws at an early age. Depending on the severity of their disorder, they may experience a poke daily or more frequently. This gives rise to anxiety for the child as well as their parents and other family members. Anticipatory anxiety is not uncommon in this setting. The child and their family often feel as though they have no control over the situation. A distraction box is filled with tools for providers to implement during any procedure involving children. The simple act of distraction (in whatever form) can significantly decrease pain and anxiety for both the child as well as their parent. This box offers multiple methods of distraction and informational videos on techniques. The focus of the Poke Plan is to give control over a painful or anxiety provoking situation back to the parent/child. The simple wallet card quickly educates any provider on how the child best handles the discomfort and anxiety associated with a poke/needlestick. Filling out the card educates the parents on distraction techniques that may be helpful for their child in painful and anxiety provoking situations. To date there have not been any studies done in this population. However centers in Michigan using similar Poke Plans in the general pediatric population include but not necessarily limited too are: Sparrow Hospital in Lansing Michigan, Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Michigan as well as the University of Michigan Children and Women’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Objective:

Prevalence of clinical depression in persons with hemophilia (PWH) has been reported to be from 0%–50%. Most papers studied fairly small numbers of PWH; many had no controls and used instruments not validated for depression. One recent paper, using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, a validated instrument for depression, reported a prevalence of 37% in 41 adult PWH. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of depression in PWH in the United States.

Methods:

Using the MarketScan® Commercial and Medical Research databases, we compared depression prevalence in 2506 PWH and 7518 controls. Male patients with hemophilia A were identified using an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) code (ICD-9-CM 286.0) and were matched (based on age, eligibility months in the study, region, and health plan type) in a 1:3 ratio with controls (no hemophilia diagnosis). Evidence of depression was determined using ICD-9-CM 296.20– 296.26, 296.30–296.36, and 311 codes. Chi-square tests were used to compare frequencies.

Summary:

PWH had a statistically significant increase in depression prevalence overall and in age groups 50–59 years and 60–69 years and a numerical increase in all other age groups except 18–29 years (Table). The delta between PWH and controls steadily increased between ages 30 and 69 years.

Table. Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Conclusions:

Commercial claims databases have limitations, including coding errors and inability to verify accuracy of diagnoses. However, in PWH versus a 3:1 control group in a US commercially insured sample that may not be representative of the overall population, depression prevalence was greater in PWH, reaching a peak of 16% in those aged 60–69 years. Awareness of this comorbidity is important as the hemophilia population ages in an era of declining healthcare-delivery resources.

Hemophilia is a rare lifelong condition which can be potentially life-threatening. Parents bare a significant responsibility for delivery of medical care because the treatment for hemophilia begins early in life for children within the home setting. As a result, parents frequently exhibit a heightened level of stress, anxiety, and subsequent trauma around the acceptance of the illness and the administration of medication management. To address the multifaceted nature of chronic illness for patients and their families, the ideal treatment utilizes a multidisciplinary team. Our proposed 3P Patient Parent Power Program aims to standardize care for families with patients of hemophilia using a tiered approach of psychosocial support. The necessary level of support will be provided to parents in order for them to successfully provide in-home prophylactic factor treatment. The goal of the program is to reduce parental stress and anxiety related to this chronic illness and increase feelings of empowerment for the parent and child.

Children with severe Hemophilia (CWH) suffer pain and inconvenience due to the required IV factor concentrates' injections and mostly exhibit poor quality of life. These children don't have any hope that their life will improve in the future. Most of them keep the Hemophilia a secret; therefore they are unable to get any emotional support from their peer group. These parameters are known stressors and triggers leading to depression, especially among children and adolescents (due to their lack of mature psychological defense mechanisms). The consequences of depression might be hazardous, since such children may neglect their medical treatment, leading to further deterioration of their medical state.

Objective:

We compared the depression level of children with Hemophilia to healthy children of the same age and background.

Methods:

Depression was evaluated using a standard validated questionnaire of depression that was developed by A.Beck - the CDI. We compared 20 children with severe Hemophilia with 25 non-Hemophiliac children.

Summary:

The calculated score for degree of depression was 7.6 for CWH vs age matched controls with a score of 12.32. The mean of normal populations is around 9. Parametrical T test for Equality of Means = 0.013.

This is the first reported study objectively addressing the issue of depression in CWH.

Conclusions:

We found the opposite of what we had expected: The children with Hemophilia were rated significantly much less depressed then the children without Hemophilia. This finding merits further validation in future larger studies and

must be examined very carefully, due to the complexity of the psychological defense mechanisms.