Rajput N, et al. - The performance of very preterm (VPT) children were evaluated in this study, on the Before School Check (B4SC), which was a community-based screening programme of school readiness at 4 years of age. This programme could be beneficial for detecting the VPT children with school readiness difficulties. Nevertheless, low referral rates could restrict the effectiveness of such programmes.

Methods

• During this study, a comparison was performed between the VPT children discharged from Wellington and Auckland Neonatal Intensive Care Units (2005-2009) to a national control cohort born during the same period.
• The Outcome measures comprised of Parental Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS), parent and teacher versions of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-P and SDQ-T) and vision and hearing screening.
• These were associated with perinatal and demographic characteristics obtained from the Australia and New Zealand Neonatal Network database.

Results

• Among the 1105 VPT children, 920 were matched to the B4SC database, of whom 814 (88%) had one or more B4SC screening outcomes recorded.
• VPT children exhibited a greater likelihood of presenting with abnormal PEDS (odds ratio (OR) = 1.79, 1.53-2.10), SDQ-P (OR = 1.82, 1.49-2.23), SDQ-T (OR = 1.51, 1.10-2.06), vision (OR = 2.00, 1.54-2.60) and hearing (OR = 1.95, 1.65-2.31) screen outcomes, compared to the controls.
• Although the referral tendency for additional analysis was greater for the VPT children with an abnormal screen, only 34%, 22%, 94% and 51% with abnormal PEDS, SDQ or vision and hearing screen, respectively, had evidence of appropriate referral.
• School readiness difficulties displayed a prominent link with birthweight z-score ≤-1, vaginal delivery, notable cranial ultrasound abnormalities, younger maternal age, higher deprivation neighbourhood and ventilation ≥72 h.