The QolPox Study- Quality of Life Effects of Chickenpox on Hospitalised Children

Chief Investigator: Dr Robin Marlow

This is a study of quality-of-life impact and healthcare usage in hospitalised and community cases of chickenpox in children and their families.

 

Why are we doing this research? 

Chickenpox is a very common illness that almost all children get before they go to school, most just have an itchy, spotty rash but some children are sicker and need to be looked after in hospital. There are good vaccines to stop people getting chickenpox that are used in other countries. In the UK we do not currently use these because we don`t have enough information about how chickenpox affects children and their parents. This study is to help decide if we should start to vaccinate children against chickenpox.

How we will do this research 

The QolPox Study included children diagnosed with chickenpox who needed to go to hospital and also a group who were treated in the community. For further information about how the study was run you can read the  Chickenpox Information Sheet (PDF, 629kB).

You can a call Bristol Vaccine Centre on 0117 342 0170 or email chickenpox-study@bristol.ac.uk with any questions.

Study results

The study “Quality of Life Effects of Chickenpox on Hospitalised Children” was a multisite, observational study undertaken at ten NHS Foundation Trust Hospital Sites in England. This study was run from 2018 to 2022 and therefore was impacted by the challenges of conducting research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

155 participants were recruited across 10 hospital sites.  Compared to the only one other study that has measured the impact of varicella in UK children, we found mild chickenpox that did not need any medical attention was 1.5x and severe hospitalised chickenpox 10x worse than we previously thought. The quality-of-life effect on the group of participants who were not admitted to hospital and were treated in the community was twice that had been previously assessed.

The results from this study were provided to the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to help inform their decision on whether the UK should routinely vaccinate children against chickenpox.

Study outputs

Epidemiology of hospitalisations due to chickenpox and quality of life lost in community and hospital settings: protocol for a prospective cohort study across two countries.

This paper describes the protocol of the two armed study that will carry prospective surveillance of hospital admissions and recruit from community settings to measure the acute quality of life loss caused by paediatric chickenpox both in the UK and in Portugal. The quality of life effects on children and their primary and secondary caregivers will be assessed using the EuroQol EQ-5D with the Child Health Utility instrument (CHU-9) in addition for children. Results will be used to derive quality-adjusted life year loss estimates for cases of simple varicella and the secondary complications. Click here to read about the study protocol!

Prospective study of loss of health-related quality adjusted life years in children and their families due to uncomplicated and hospitalised varicella.

This paper describes the analysis and results of the ”sister study” run in Portugal in parallel with the UK QoLPox study. Although usually benign, varicella can lead to serious complications and sometimes long-term sequelae. Vaccines are safe and effective but not yet included in immunisation programmes in many countries. We aimed to quantify the impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALY) in children with varicella and their families, key to assessing cost-utility in countries with low mortality due to this infection. Click here to read it!