Article Text
Abstract
Objective To evaluate the rate of developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and its correlation to cognition and self-experienced health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children born very preterm.
Design Prospective follow-up study.
Setting Regional population of children born very preterm in Turku University Hospital, Finland, in 2001–2006.
Patients A total of 170 children born very preterm were followed up until 11 years of age.
Main outcome measures Motor and cognitive outcomes were evaluated using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children - Second Edition (Movement ABC-2) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Fourth Edition, respectively, and HRQoL using the 17-Dimensional Illustrated Questionnaire (17D). The Touwen neurological examination was performed to exclude other neurological conditions affecting the motor outcome.
Results Eighteen children born very preterm (17 boys) (11.3%) had DCD, defined as Movement ABC-2 total test score ≤5th percentile. A positive correlation between motor and cognitive outcome (r=0.22, p=0.006) was found. Children born very preterm with DCD had lower cognitive scores than those without DCD (Full-Scale IQ mean 76.8 vs 91.6, p=0.001). Moreover, children born very preterm with DCD reported lower HRQoL than children born very preterm without motor impairment (17D mean 0.93 vs 0.96, p=0.03). However, HRQoL was higher in this group of children born very preterm compared with population-based normative test results (p<0.001).
Conclusions DCD was still common at 11 years of age in children born very preterm in 2000s. DCD associated with adverse cognitive development and lower self-experienced HRQoL. However, this group of children born very preterm reported better HRQoL in comparison with Finnish norms.
- neurodevelopment
- outcomes research
- neonatology
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Collaborators For collaboration regarding the 17D questionnaire: Marjo Apajasalo and Harri Sintonen.
Contributors KU collected the data, drafted the initial manuscript and revised the manuscript. LH and LL conceptualised and designed the study, designed the data collection instrument, supervised the data collection, revised the manuscript, and critically reviewed the study for intellectual content. AN collected the data and revised the manuscript. MH, LR and PTR revised the manuscript and critically reviewed the study for intellectual content. Moreover, they were the specialists on HRQoL testing. RP supervised the data collection, revised the manuscript and critically reviewed the study for intellectual content. KL collected the data and reviewed the manuscript. MK performed the statistical analysis, and revised and reviewed the manuscript. SS designed the study, collected the data, revised the manuscript and critically reviewed the study for intellectual content. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Funding All phases of this study were supported by a grant from the Arvo and Lea Ylppö Foundation, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the South-Western Finnish Foundation of Neonatal Research, the Turku University Research Foundation, and the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation.
Disclaimer The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The Ethics Review Committee of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland approved the study protocol in 2000 and in 2012.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request. LL (ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8925-2594https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8925-2594) is the data manager, and the Hospital District of Southwest Finland is the data holder. Reuse of data is possible only with the permission of the data holder.