Mental health outcomes in young adolescents born preterm reveal the need for earlier screening

Abstract

Abstract Background Early adolescence marks a critical period for the onset of psychiatric symptoms, with 50% of mental disorders emerging before age 18. Recent evidence points to individuals being born preterm and/or with low birth weight (henceforth, PTB) having an increased risk of developing mental disorders in adolescence. Surprisingly, existing early detection and intervention strategies in adolescence are not tailored to PTB needs and profiles. The previous use of several disorder-specific instruments complicates unified, efficient screening. Methods We analyzed data on the frequency of experiencing mental health challenges from 225 adolescents aged 10-14 years (M = 12.03 years) who were born very PTB (M = 28.03 weeks, M = 999.62 g) to test the applicability of the diagnostic system for mental disorders for children and adolescents – III (DISYPS-III) to PTB adolescents. Results A confirmatory factor analysis replicated the DISYPS-III’s factorial structure and internal consistency for 10- to 14-year-old PTB adolescents. Overall, PTB adolescents reported significantly more mental health challenges than the DISYPS-III community norm sample. The instrument’s transdiagnostic scales provided a better relative fit to these challenges compared to the disorder-specific scales. Results also replicated specific findings of mental health challenges from other PTB cohorts and countries, such as a higher number of comorbidities in adolescents officially diagnosed with the inattentive presentation (ADD) of ADHD. Conclusions These findings of an elevated psychological burden suggest a need for structured PTB screening of long-term mental health outcomes in adolescence that also includes 10-year-old PTB individuals, with the DISYPS-III being a suitable screening instrument.