PRETERM MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS DIFFERENTIALLY AFFECT NEUROBEHAVIORAL FUNCTIONS - RESULTS FROM A NEW NEONATAL MEDICAL INDEX

A neonatal medical index was developed and externally validated to test the clinical sensitivity of the Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI), for which the reliability and developmental validity had previously been established, but which had not been tested for its clinical validity. The Neonatal Medical Index (NMI) summarizes, in bold strokes, infants' medical course during their stay in the hospital. Two questions were posed: (a) Does the assessment differentiate between the performance of infants who had severe medical complications from that of infants who had an uncomplicated medical course? and (b) Do medical complications affect some neurobehavioral functions and not others? The results indicated that all functions requiring infant vigor and strength were significantly affected by prior medical complications (i.e., motor development and vigor, irritability, and vigor of crying). By contrast, alertness and orientation and several other neurobehavioral functions were relatively unaffected by prior illness.