Description

Upper and lower extremity fractures are common amongst the pediatric population, with nearly 1 in every 5 children sustaining a fracture throughout their childhood and adolescence. Immobilization following an upper or lower extremity fracture is essential for treatment and bony healing, and this is most commonly performed with casting. Casts are placed in the acute setting in the emergency department or at an outpatient follow up visit; however, if the patient requires surgery, casts are also placed in the post operative period to aid in bony healing through immobilization. Length of treatment in the cast is dependent on the type of fracture the patient sustains, in addition to the bony healing that is analyzed via serial radiographs.

Given the prevalence of upper and lower extremity fractures among the pediatric population, overall patient and parent satisfaction is a key goal of treatment. While casting is extensively used at numerous pediatric orthopaedic centers, there is a paucity of information detailing patient reported outcome measures following casting. Typically casts are left to be either white in color or wrapped with a color of the patient's choice. Further customization of casts is now being popularized especially in social media, including drawing on the casts or applying decorative top-coat layers to the cast. However, there is little information detailing patient satisfaction and pain scores following casting with different techniques.

The purpose of this study is to: determine the difference in satisfaction as measured by the visual analog scale for satisfaction between patients treated in a cast with cast customization versus those in a cast with no cast art and (2) determine the difference in perceived pain scores between patients treated in a cast with cast customization versus those in a case with no cast art.