COPE for Parents & Preterms: 2 1/2 and 3 Year Follow-Up

描述(由申请人提供)：低出生体重(LBW)早产儿是一系列身心健康不良后果的高危人群，包括神经和认知发育延迟、注意力缺陷障碍、行为问题和医疗使用率增加。这些早产儿的病症通常会持续到学龄期，并导致学习辅导、行为管理和家庭咨询的高昂费用。早产儿的父母也有很高的不良后果风险，包括抑郁和焦虑症以及功能失调的父母教养方式。因此，迫切需要在这一高危人群中测试理论指导的干预措施的短期和长期结果。这项补充建议的具体目的是获得资金支持：对目前参加我们NIH/NINR资助的随机临床试验的LBW早产儿及其父母进行2年半和3岁的随访评估，该试验旨在测试理论上驱动的可重复干预计划(COPE=为父母赋权创造机会)通过2岁校正年龄对儿童和父母结局的影响；以及对我们COPE实验组中一半的儿童和父母进行2岁半时的强化干预，以确定COPE干预的效果是否可以在学龄前几年得到增强。在我们研究的这个阶段，补充资金是至关重要的，因为到2006年1月，178名儿童将达到两岁半，132名儿童将满3岁，这是我们目前资助的临床试验的结束日期。对我们目前研究数据的初步分析表明，COPE计划对关键结果变量有积极影响，并为更长期的随访创造了一个令人信服的案例。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Low-birth-weight (LBW) premature infants are at high-risk for a multitude of physical and mental health adverse outcomes, including delays in neurological and cognitive development, attention deficit disorder, behavioral problems, and increased medical utilization. These morbidities of prematurity often persist into the school-age years and result in high costs for academic remediation, behavioral management, and family counseling. Parents of preterms also are at high-risk for adverse outcomes, including depression and anxiety disorders as well as dysfunctional parenting patterns. Therefore, there is an urgent need to test both the short- and long-term outcomes of theory-guided interventions with this high-risk population. The specific aim of this supplemental proposal is to gain funding support for: 2 1/2 and 3 year old follow-up assessments of LBW premature infants and their parents who are currently enrolled in our NIH/NINR funded randomized clinical trial that is testing the effects of a theoretically driven reproducible intervention program (COPE= Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment) on child and parent outcomes, through 2 years corrected age; and a booster intervention at 2 1/2 years of age for half of the children and parents in our COPE experimental group in order to determine whether the effects of the COPE intervention can be enhanced during the pre-school years. Supplemental funding is critical at this stage of our research as 178 children will be 2 1/2 years of age and 132 children will turn 3 years by January of 2006, the end date for our currently funded clinical trial. Preliminary analysis of data from our current study indicates positive effects for the COPE program on key outcome variables and creates a compelling case for more long-term follow-up.