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Abstract
Objective Literature on health status (HS) and health-related quality of life of preterm survivors at preschool age is sparse. Further, little is known about the relationship between parent-reported HS outcomes and standardised neurodevelopmental outcomes measured in preterm survivors at preschool age. Our objective was to evaluate parent-reported child HS outcomes and their relationship to neurodevelopmental outcomes at 36 months of age in very preterm survivors.
Design Prospective population-based cohort study.
Setting Perinatal follow-up programme.
Patients Infants <31 weeks’ gestational age born from 2014 to 2016.
Outcome measures Parents completed the Health Status Classification System for Pre-School Children questionnaire at 36 months. At the same age, neurodevelopmental assessments were completed to determine neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI). NDI was categorised as none, ‘mild’ or ‘significant’ (moderate or severe cerebral palsy, Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development - Third Edition <70, blind or required hearing aid).
Results Of 118 children, 87 (73.7%) parents reported their child had an HS concern (mild: 61 (51%); moderate: 16 (13.6%); and severe: 10 (8.5%)). Mild and significant NDIs were observed in 17 (14.4%) and 14 (11.9%) children, respectively. For the 14 (12%) children with significant NDI, 7 (50.0%) parents reported severe and 4 (28.6%) reported moderate concerns. Conversely, for 26 (22%) children with parent-reported moderate to severe concerns, 11 (42.3%) met the criteria for significant NDI. There was a moderate positive correlation between parental concern and NDI status (Spearman correlation=0.46, p<0.0001).
Conclusions Parental HS concerns only moderately correlated with the NDI status. Of the 12% of children with significant NDI, only half of the parents reported severe HS concerns.
- Neonatology
- Child Health
- Child Development
Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
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Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
Footnotes
Presented at This work was previously presented at the 2023 Pediatric Academic Society Annual Meeting and the 2023 Canadian Paediatric Society Annual Conference.
Contributors SG conceptualised and designed the study, supervised the drafting of the initial manuscript, and is the acting guarantor. SM drafted the initial manuscript, designed the figures and was involved in the statistical analysis. AS completed the bulk of the data collection, organisation and statistical analysis. NS performed and critically reviewed the statistical analysis. ARS, PSS and MC-Y helped in the interpretation of the study findings. All authors critically reviewed the manuscript and approved the final manuscript as submitted.
Funding The study was supported by the IWK Health Centre category A grant (#1022498) and IWK Establishment grant (#1026365) (to SG), and the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine Gladys Osman Estate Summer Studentship (to SM).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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