Comparison of Griffiths-II and Bayley-II tests for the developmental assessment of high-risk infants.
BACKGROUND
Two important risk factors for abnormal neurodevelopment are preterm birth and neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. The new revisions of Griffiths Mental Development Scale (Griffiths-II, [1996]) and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID-II, [1993]) are two of the most frequently used developmental diagnostics tests. The Griffiths-II is divided into five subscales and a global development quotient (QD), and the BSID-II is divided into two scales, the Mental scale (MDI) and the Psychomotor scale (PDI). The main objective of this research was to establish the extent to which developmental diagnoses obtained using the new revisions of these two tests are comparable for a given child.


METHODS
Retrospective study of 18-months-old high-risk children examined with both tests in the follow-up Unit of the Clinic of Neonatology of our tertiary care university Hospital between 2011 and 2012. To determine the concurrent validity of the two tests paired t-tests and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were computed. Using the BSID-II as a gold standard, the performance of the Griffiths-II was analyzed with receiver operating curves.


RESULTS
61 patients (80.3% preterm, 14.7% neonatal asphyxia) were examined. For the BSID-II the MDI mean was 96.21 (range 67-133) and the PDI mean was 87.72 (range 49-114). For the Griffiths-II, the QD mean was 96.95 (range 60-124), the locomotors subscale mean was 92.57 (range 49-119). The score of the Griffiths locomotors subscale was significantly higher than the PDI (p<0.001). Between the Griffiths-II QD and the BSID-II MDI no significant difference was found, and the area under the curve was 0.93, showing good validity. All correlations were high and significant with a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient >0.8.


CONCLUSIONS
The meaning of the results for a given child was the same for the two tests. Two scores were interchangeable, the Griffiths-II QD and the BSID-II MDI.
Department of Paediatrics, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: ilaria.cirelli@hotmail.com.
Ilaria
I
Cirelli
Department of Paediatrics, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Myriam
M
Bickle Graz
Department of Paediatrics, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Jean-François
JF
Tolsa
D001238:Asphyxia Neonatorum / Q000523:psychology; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007232:Infant, Newborn, Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000523:psychology; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment
Bayley Scales of Infant Development; Concurrent validity; Development; Griffiths Mental Development Scale; High-risk infants