The CELLOS Study

Interested in taking part?

Research question

What are the most important outcomes for children’s elective lower limb orthopaedic surgery, and how should these be measured?

Background

Children’s planned leg surgery includes any part of the leg, from the hip to the feet. This type of surgery can happen for many reasons. These include to fix a problem from birth, to fix a problem from growing, or to fix an injury. To decide which surgery they should do, surgeons use research studies. 

But there are problems with the research studies. Some researchers only measure how the child’s leg moves before and after surgery. But this does not consider other important results. These might be:

• If they can play more sport.
• If they still need to use a crutch.
• How happy they feel.

These are called outcomes.

Another problem is researchers measure different outcomes. They also measure outcomes in ways that are meant for adults, not children. These problems make it hard to know which surgery is best. It would be better if all researchers measured the same outcomes, and in the same ways.

To choose which outcomes researchers should measure, we ask everyone involved in children’s planned leg surgery. This includes children and young people, their parents and carers, and health professionals. Outcomes which everyone agrees are important are called a core outcome set.

The aim of this project is to develop a core outcome set for children’s planned leg surgery, from the hips to the feet. 

A core outcome set will make it easier for:

• Researchers to decide which outcomes to measure.
• Surgeons to compare results from research studies.
• Surgeons, children, and their parents or carers to decide which surgery is best.

Design and Methods

This project will be split into four work packages:

Work Package 1: I will look at previous research studies. I will make a list of what outcomes they measured.

Work Package 2: I will interview people. I will ask which outcomes they think researchers should measure. This will include:

• Children and young people who have had leg surgery.
• Parents or carers.
• Surgeons.
• Other healthcare professionals, like physiotherapists.

Work Package 3: I will carry out a survey. The survey will include all the outcomes I found in Work Package 1 and 2. I will aim to ask about 150 people to vote on what outcomes they think are most important. The same groups of people from Work Package 2 will be invited to complete the survey. I will also invite researchers. 

After the survey, I will run a workshop. The workshop will discuss the results of the survey. It will agree the most important outcomes. The workshop will include about 25 people.

Work Package 4: I will look at previous research studies. I will make a list of how they measured outcomes. I will run another workshop. The workshop will discuss the best ways to measure the outcomes.

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