The Multiple Sclerosis Inventory of Cognition for Adolescents (MUSICADO): A brief screening instrument to assess cognitive dysfunction, fatigue and loss of health-related quality of life in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis K. Storm van's Gravesande a,* , P. Calabrese b , A. Blaschek c , K. Rost  asy d , P. Huppke e , L. Rothe f , V. Mall a , J. Kessler f , E. Kalbe g , for the MUSICADO Study Group 1 a Department of Pediatrics, Child and Adolescent Psychosomatics, Technische Universit€ at Mu ¨ nchen, Munich, Heigelhofstr. 63, 81377 Mu ¨ nchen, Germany b Neuropsychology and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Division of Molecular and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Birmannsgasse 8, 4055 Basel, Switzerland c Department of Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Medicine, Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital, Ludwig- Maximilians-University, Lindwurmstrasse 4, 80337 Munich, Germany d Pediatric Neurology, Witten/Herdecke University, Children's Hospital Datteln, Dr. Friedrich Steiner Str. 5, 5711 Datteln, Germany e Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Division of Pediatric Neurology, University Medical Center G€ ottingen, Robert-Koch Strasse 40, 37075 G€ ottingen, Germany f Department of Neurology, University Hospital Cologne, Kerpenerstr. 62, 50937 Cologne, Germany g Department of Medical Psychology ǀ, Neuropsychology and Gender Studies & Center for Neuropsychological Diagnostics and Intervention (CeNDI), University Hospital Cologne, Kerpenerstr. 62, 50937 Cologne, Germany article info Article history: Received 9 January 2019 Received in revised form 23 July 2019 Accepted 22 August 2019 Keywords: Pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis Screening instrument Cognition Fatigue Health-related quality of life abstract Objective: Screening for cognitive impairment (CI), fatigue and also Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) is of utmost importance in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to establish a new and validated pediatric screening tool “MUSICADO” that is easy to use and time economical. Methods: 106 patients with POMS aged 12e18 years and 210 healthy controls (HCs) stratified for age and education underwent neuropsychological testing including a screening test “Multiple Sclerosis Inventory of Cognition” for adults and 8 standardized cognitive tests and established scales to assess fatigue and HRQoL. Results: The phonemic verbal fluency task (RWT “s-words”), the Trail Making Test A (TMT- A), and the Digit Span Forward discriminated significantly between patients and HCs (p ¼ 0.000, respectively) and showed the highest proportion of test failure in patients (24.5%, 17.9%; 15.1%, respectively). Therefore, they were put together to form the cognitive part of the “MUSICADO”. After applying a scoring algorithm with balanced weighting of the * Corresponding author. Department of Pediatrics, Child and Adolescent Psychosomatics, Technische Universit€ at Mu ¨ nchen, Hei- gelhofstr. 63, 81377 Mu ¨ nchen, Germany. Fax: þ49 89 71009 253. E-mail address: karin.storm@gmx.de (K. Storm van's Gravesande). 1 MUSICADO Study Group members listed in the Appendix A section. Official Journal of the European Paediatric Neurology Society european journal of paediatric neurology xxx (xxxx) xxx https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpn.2019.08.006 1090-3798/© 2019 European Paediatric Neurology Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Storm van's Gravesande K et al., The Multiple Sclerosis Inventory of Cognition for Adolescents (MUSICADO): A brief screening instrument to assess cognitive dysfunction, fatigue and loss of health-related quality of life in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis, European Journal of Paediatric Neurology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpn.2019.08.006