Assessment of the neuropsychomotor development in the first year of life of premature infants with and without bronchopulmonary dysplasia

OBJECTIVE: To compare the neuropsychomotor development in the first year of life of premature infants with and without bronchopulmonary dysplasia. METHODS: A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted between January 1, 2014, and December 30, 2015, with premature infants weighing < 1,500g at birth and diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia at the corrected ages of 6 and 9 months, assessed using the DENVER II Developmental Screening Test. Quantitative variables were described as the means, medians and standard deviations. Variables with normal distribution were tested using Student's t test; otherwise, the Mann-Whitney test was used, considering significance at p-value < 0.05. Qualitative variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages. Logistic regression was used with odds ratio analysis to evaluate the effects of other variables as risk factors for changes in neuropsychomotor development. RESULTS: Infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia showed greater developmental delay compared with those without bronchopulmonary dysplasia (p-value = 0.001). The factors associated with a higher incidence of changes in neuropsychomotor development, in addition to bronchopulmonary dysplasia, were antenatal steroid, gender, birth weight, 5-minute Apgar score, Score for Neonatal Acute Physiology-Perinatal Extension, duration of oxygen therapy, duration of mechanical ventilation and length of hospital stay. Other variables may also have influenced the result, such as drug use by mothers of infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. CONCLUSION: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia associated with other pre- and postnatal factors may be considered a risk factor for delayed neuropsychomotor development in the first year of life in premature infants born weighing less than 1,500g.