Drooling in children with cerebral palsy: a qualitative method to evaluate parental perceptions of its impact on daily life, social interaction, and self-esteem.

Research on the treatment of drooling applies measures such as salivary flow rate, qualitative observations of drooling severity in standardized situations, and anecdotal or one-dimensional parental and teacher reports. To assess drooling severity in a range of everyday conditions, and its impact on the daily life of children and their families, two parent questionnaires were constructed. Results of baseline measurements of 43 children with cerebral palsy showed that the questionnaires measured the variation in drooling severity across daily life conditions, and enabled evaluation of the impact of drooling on the ability to eat, drink and speak, on daily care, economic consequences, and social interactions. The section on the impact of drooling on self-esteem appeared not to be fully applicable for non-speaking children with a low developmental status. The questionnaires offer a qualitative method to evaluate parental perceptions of the impact of drooling and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to reduce drooling.