QOL-19. PARENT-REPORTED COGNITIVE PROBLEMS AND DIRECT ASSESSMENT OF COGNITION IN CHILDREN TREATED FOR A BRAIN TUMOR

The Pediatric Perceived Cognitive Function (PedsPCF) item bank is a short parent and self-reported cognitive screening questionnaire developed in the context of pediatric oncology. The PedsPCF demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties and the scores of the PedsPCF are found to be associated with clinical outcomes. Today little research is available to evaluate whether the PedsPCF is correlated with direct assessments of neurocognitive domains. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether important cognitive domains, such as different aspects of intelligence, memory, visuomotor integration can predict the PedsPCF score. We obtained 100 PedsPCF filled in by parents from children treated for a brain tumor. All these children completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Mean age at diagnosis was 7.47 years and mean age at completion of PedsPCF and testing 13.84. The most common diagnoses were pilocytic astrocytoma (n=43) and medulloblastoma (n=14). A linear regression model with verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, processing speed, visuomotor integration as predictors for overall PedsPCF score was significant (p.005), but the overall model fit was limited (adjusted R2: 14%). Visuomotor integration and processing speed were significant predictors (beta = 0.56 and -0.29). Our results are in line with the overall finding that the correlation between questionnaires assessing quality of survival and direct assessments of cognition are low. For clinical practice these results are important as the PedsPCF can’t be used to replace direct cognitive assessments or vice versa.