Background and Aims
Among the population of preterm infants, moderate and late preterm (MLPT) infants (born between 320/7-366/7 weeks of gestation) make up the much majority. Despite a high risk for developmental problems, it is difficult to monitor this population with standardized clinical visits. Thus, detailed information on their behavioral outcome are lacking. This study aimed to compare behavioral outcome of early school-aged MLPT with term-born children.
Method
Single-centre cohort study including MLPT children born in 2011-2013 in the University Hospital Zurich and age- and sex-matched term-born controls. Children with major malformations were excluded. The children’s parents/proxies completed the German version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) at age 4-to-6 years. Neonatal and socio-demographic confounders were collected from the hospital charts and from a generic questionnaire.
Results
We analysed 306 MLPT children (50% female, 63% singletons, mean (SD) gestational age 34.9 (1.3) weeks, birth weight 2270 (450) grams) and 156 controls (50% females, 85% singletons, mean GA 39.4 (1.4) weeks, mean BW 3245 (520) grams) at a mean age of 4.9(0.8) years. Average behavioural outcome measures of early school-aged MLPT children were within reference range. Scores of MLPT children were higher in the domains ‘Emotional’, ‘Peer relationship’, and the ‘Total difficulties’ (p<0.05) of the SDQ, and in the domain ‘Social communication’ and the ‘Total score’ (p<0.05) of the SCQ than those of term-born controls. After adjustment for socio-demographic confounders differences in the SDQ domains persisted (p=0.02) between groups.
Conclusion
In this study, average behavioural outcome measures of early school-aged MLPT are within reference range. MLPT children display more behavioural problems than term-born children, the socio-emotional domains being most affected. Albeit statistically significant, the effect sizes of these effects are small.

11 - BEHAVIOURAL OUTCOME IN FORMER MODERATE AND LATE PRETERM CHILDREN AT EARLY SCHOOL AGE