MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO PEDIATRIC CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE

Abstract

This paper examined the effectiveness of multidisciplinary management of paediatric congenital heart disease (CHD) by integrating cardiology, cardiac surgery, nutrition, developmental paediatrics and psychiatric services.  This paper provides the assessment of the influence of a collaborative care model on clinical outcomes, neurodevelopment, quality of life, and carer experience in a mixed-methods experimental study that includes 200 children who have a congenital heart disease.  The quantitative results indicated that there were significant positive changes in postoperative values, as oxygen saturation stabilised following the intervention, the left ventricular ejection fraction increased (mean: 6.5), and the ICU length of the hospital stay decreased (mean: 1.8 days, p < 0.01).  Moreover, the neurodevelopmental scores based on movement motor pathway as well as the cognitive were raised by 15% mean wavelength.  The children that were subject to the multidisciplinary paradigm experienced a 21 percent increase in overall scores of quality measures in their quality-of-life measurements through the PedsQL.  Our two-way analysis of variance showed that early surgical treatment with psychological support at the family level was significantly better in terms of recovery results, (p < 0.05).  The thematic analysis of qualitative interviews revealed psychological benefits of integrative care: higher level of satisfaction of the carers when the communication with clinical team had been improved, and parental anxiety had decreased.  Such findings can be interpreted to indicate that collaborative inter-specialty frameworks can substantially transform the entire psychosocial environment of the patients and their families besides enhancing the physiological healing of paediatric patients with congenital heart disease.  The replication of this integrative paradigm may be useful in other complex paediatric conditions that require a coordinated long-term care.