Family functioning, burden and parenting stress 2 years after very preterm birth

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2011.03.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Examining rates of difficulties in family functioning following very preterm birth has been a relatively neglected area of research.

Aims

To examine family functioning, burden and parenting stress in families with very preterm compared with term born children, and investigate influences of parental mental health problems and child neurodevelopmental disability on family outcomes in families with preterm children.

Study design

Participants were 184 very preterm and 71 term children and their parents. Parents completed the Family Assessment Device, Parenting Stress Index and Impact on Family questionnaires when their children were 2 years old (corrected for prematurity). Parental mental health and social risk information were also collected. Children were assessed for neurodevelopmental disability.

Results

Families with very preterm children reported poorer family functioning (p = .03) compared with families with term born children, with less evidence for differences between families with very preterm and term born children in parenting stress and family burden. Within very preterm families, parental mental health problems were associated with higher levels of parenting stress (p = .001), and parents of children with a neurodevelopmental disability were more likely to report higher family burden (p = .04).

Conclusions

For families with very preterm children, parental mental health symptoms and child neurodevelopmental disability may identify families at risk of greater stress and burden who may benefit from additional support.

Section snippets

Patients and methods

This study used data from the Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) cohort, a study of 227 very preterm children recruited during the neonatal period. This cohort included infants born at < 30 weeks' gestation or with a birth weight < 1250 g at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne Australia, between 2001 and 2003. Term born children (inclusion criteria: born > 36 weeks' gestation, English-speaking family) were recruited at birth from the Royal Women's Hospital maternity wards (n = 46) between 2001

Sample description

Compared with families with very preterm children who completed questionnaires at 2 years, those who did not were more likely to have twins/triplets (60% of non-completers had twins/triplets versus 28% of completers, chi-squared p<.001). There was little difference on sociodemographic variables between the completers and non-completers for the term group. For families included in the study, the very preterm group had higher numbers of twins/triplets, higher social risk, and were more likely to

Discussion

Results from the current study indicated that families with very preterm children reported poorer family functioning 2 years after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) compared with families of term born infants. While others have failed to find differences on family functioning between families with preterm and term born children at age 11 [1], the current results suggest there may be differences in family functioning at younger ages. These differences may disappear over time,

Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare they do not have any potential conflicts of interest with regards to this study.

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    Funding: This study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (Project Grant No. 237117; Senior Research Fellowship (PJA) No. 628371), The Royal Women's Hospital Research Foundation, the Brockhoff Foundation, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (Victorian Government).

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