title: Long-Term Cognitive and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes of Pediatric Sepsis: Scoping Review Protocol
Creators: name: Guderyan, Sydney D.
name: Thompson, Graham C.
Publisher: name: Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Academic Performance
subject: Children
subject: Cognitive
subject: Paediatric
subject: Neuropsychological

description: The objective of this scoping review is to summarize the evidence surrounding long-term outcomes of sepsis in the pediatric population, specifically outcomes related to neurodevelopment, academic/work performance, and cognitive function. Secondary objectives include evaluation of which etiologies of sepsis more commonly cause long-term neurodevelopmental and cognitive outcomes. Pediatric sepsis is a common presentation to emergency departments worldwide and a major contributor to PICU admissions (1). Long-term complications have been identified in the pediatric population, however, when compared to research in adults, there are significant gaps in characterizing the long-term impacts of sepsis in children, their relationship to different management strategies and potential interventions to optimize these outcomes (2,3). A review of this literature aims to summarize existing knowledge, recognize knowledge gaps and identify critical areas for further research. Literature evaluating long-term outcomes of sepsis on neurodevelopment, cognitive function, academic or work performance, and emotional impacts of pediatric sepsis will be included in the initial search and subsequently categorized into appropriate groupings for analysis. Literature on pediatric populations will be considered, excluding neonatal (≤ 28 days old) and adult (≥ 18 years old) populations due to significant clinical and physiological differences in these groups. Studies that look at long-term impacts of pediatric illness/hospitalization and include sepsis in their population will be included if there is clear division between different conditions but will be excluded if sepsis is analyzed in aggregate. Abstracts reviewed that do not specifically mention sepsis will be excluded unless they describe a presentation specifically consistent with sepsis based on the clinical judgement of reviewers. Information sources searched include: MedLine, EMBase and CINAHL. Searches were conducted on May 14th, 2024. Search limits exclude studies on the neonatal population and studies following participants for less than 12 months. Once all searches are conducted, abstracts will be uploaded into Covidence for abstract and full-text screening by both reviewers. Any disagreement as to which studies should be included will be resolved by a more detailed review and agreement via consensus. Once papers are selected, they will be grouped for analysis. The data will then be summarized in aggregate and presented in the manuscript to address the research objective and sub-objectives. The project aims to summarize existing knowledge on the long-term cognitive and neurodevelopmental impacts of pediatric sepsis and identify gaps which could be addressed by future long-term outcome studies or research on interventions associated with improved outcomes of pediatric sepsis.