| Objective To access status of all areas in quality of life (QOL), including physical development, mental development and of subjective of quality of life, for children with low birth weight during 6-12 school-age years old.. This study prepared to construct comprehensive system for assessing quality of life in quality of life for children with low birth weight during school age and provide the basis to establish areas and contents of quality of life scale for school-age childrenMethods In preliminary studies, we established a birth cohort live birth in a hospital in Tongling city in June 1994 and choose Cohort members of the collect relevant information for each collection. Then in June 2006, 198 children with low birth weight (LBW) registered permanent residence in urban whose birth weight below 2500g were selected from the parade as a case study in the follow-up group who enter the parade in June 1994 to 2000 in June to, up to 101 cases. Meanwhile, the control group was matched in the parade. The subjects included 50 pairs of boys, 51 pairs of girls. The study used questionnaires to collect demographic characteristics, family environment and the prevalence of children. Physical development indicators of school-age children, including height, weight, sitting height, brassieres and other indicators were measured to evaluate their growth and development status and their intelligence development status were measured with C-WISC test. Inventory of Subjective Life Questionnaire(ISLQ)for school-age children and WHO Quality Of Life Questionnaire(WHOQOL - BREF)for adult were respectively used evaluate their quality of life. Analysis of the born basic conditions in the LBW group used Chi-square test and Pearson correlation analysis. Compared of Indicators of physical development, intelligence development and subjective quality of life for school-age children between LBW and NBW groups used the paired Student t test, Chi-square test and the paired Chi-square test (McNemar).The relation of physical development of School-age children with their age used Pearson's correlation analysis and linear regression analysis. The correlation between IQ and nutritional status of children used Kendall correlation analysis and analysis of variance. The factors affecting children's intelligence analysis used multiple linear regression analysis. The correlation analysis of the subjective quality of life for children with LBW and quality of life for their guardians used Pearson and Kendall correlation analysis.Results Growth and development indicators, including height, weight, and the physique index (BMI), chest circumference and FVC of 6-12 age children in the LBW group, were significance lower than that in the NBW group. In 101 children with LBW, the proportions of birth with full-term and premature low birth weight were 63.4% and 36.6%, respectively, their birth weight was positively correlated with mother's gestational age. 27 cases (26.7%) have neonatal diseases in 101 children with LBW and their average birth weight was lower than that of children not sick suffering from diseases. Different incidence of neonatal disease among different birth weight children and incidence rate (80.0%) of neonatal disease in children with birth weight below 2000g was significantly higher than that of children with 2000~2500g birth weight. There were 70 cases (69.3%) mothers of children with LBW conducted periodic medical examinations during pregnancy. Birth weight of children with LBW improved with and positively correlated with their mother's examinations (no– irregular - regular). The physical development of children was positively correlated with age.PIQ and FIQ of 6-12 years old children with LBW in school age were lower than children with NBW. Most of children's IQ between 90 and 109. The proportions of children in the LBW group who PIQ between 80 to 89 children were higher than that of the NBW group and VIQ, PIQ and FIQ from 110 to 119 were lower than the NBW group. The proportion of extraordinary VIQ (more than 120) were lower than that of children in the NBW group. Factors affecting children's intelligence quotient have child's birth weight, nutritional status, father's education and mother's vocation.For 6-12 years old school-age children, subjective quality of life for children in the LBW and NBW groups were focused on the general level and there was no significant difference in 8 latitudes such as family life, peer interaction and school life, and cognitive components, emotional components and the total level of satisfaction with in their subject quality of life between children with Low birth weight and children with normal birth weight. The scores of cognitive, emotional and total scale were the lowest whose academic performance not good. In addition, there was no different the overall satisfaction of children with LBW in different family income. Emotional components scores were positively correlated with IQ of children in the LBW and NBW groups. For guardian of children, there was no different in score of physiology, psychological and environmental fields between two groups. For children with LBW, scores of emotional components were significantly correlated with that of guardians'physiology, psychology, environmental and social relations fields in quality of life, scores of cognitive components were not related to that of guardians'every fields in the quality of life and scores of total scale were positively correlated with that of guardians'physical and psychological fields.Conclusions There was a certain gap in the level of physical growth and intelligence development in the objective quality of life for children with Low birth weight than that of children with normal birth weight. More satisfaction in the lives of children was affected by with the family and school environment. Despite there was no significant difference between the subjective quality of life for children with low birth weight and that of children with normal birth weight, even subjective satisfaction was higher in certain areas of quality of life, but it should not ignored the effect of LBW for a child's growth. Furthermore, the subjective quality of life for children with LBW was correlated with parents'quality of life in some areas. Therefore, improving the parents'quality of life has certain practical significance for promoting the mental health of children with LBW. |
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