ABSTRACT
Current international consensus of the appropriate Beighton score cut-off to define if a child has generalised joint hypermobile or not is based upon expert opinion. Our aim was to determine the prevalence of Beighton scores of children worldwide to provide a recommendation for establishing the Beighton score cut-off to identify generalised joint hypermobility in children. We used AMED, OVID Medline, Embase and CINAHL to find published articles from inception to April 2024 describing Beighton scores of children up to and including 18 years from the general population. We extracted study demographics including country of publication, total number of participants, summary data about the age and sex of participant, Beighton scores and any cut-off used where authors deemed children hypermobile and how many children were rated at the corresponding Beighton scores. There were 37 articles reporting on the prevalence or incidence of hypermobility at cut-off scores from 28,868 participants. Using the cut-off of ≥ 6 resulted in a prevalence of 6% for studies reporting male data and 13% for studies reporting female data. Limited data reporting availability precluded further sub-analysis at a Beighton score of ≥ 7, age, pubertal status and ethnicity. Conclusion: The working threshold for identifying generalised joint hypermobility in children should be a Beighton score of 6 or more. Our analysis also suggests a Beighton score of 7 or greater may be appropriate in childhood, particularly for females. What is Known: ⢠The working threshold for identifying generalised joint hypermobility in children previously was set based on expert opinion. What is New: ⢠The threshold to identify hypermobility in children should be at a minimum of ≥ 6 on the Beighton score.
Subject(s)
Joint Instability , Humans , Joint Instability/diagnosis , Joint Instability/epidemiology , Child , Adolescent , Female , Male , Prevalence , Child, PreschoolABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Calcaneal apophysitis is a common condition in childhood. Parents often seek online information for children's' health care concerns prior to seeking care. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the credibility, readability, and accuracy of calcaneal apophysitis advertising on popular websites in three countries. METHODS: We used content analysis of publicly accessible data. This involved identifying the top 50 websites in each country from their hit rates. We used elements of validated tools to audit and determine frequencies relevant to credibility (e.g. publisher), readability (e.g. literacy score) and accuracy (e.g. alignment with evidence). Data were analysed quantitatively and reported against each element. RESULTS: Websites were predominantly hosted by private health services (n = 118, 79%). The mean (SD) SMOG (readability) score was 9.3 (4.5). The majority of websites (n = 140, 93%) provided at least one treatment recommendation, and less than 10% (n = 11) of websites advertised treatments fully aligned with evidence. Use of treatment modalities without evidence and with high risk to children were also found including surgery, extracorporeal shock wave therapy and laser. CONCLUSIONS: Calcaneal apophysitis online advertising is mostly curated by clinicians. Clinicians should consider revising online advertising to increase understandability and accuracy to reduce health care wastage, risk, and low value care.
