Development and preliminary testing of the Brief Developmental Assessment: an early recognition tool for children with heart disease

Implementing neurodevelopmental follow-up care for children with congenital heart disease: A scoping review with evidence mapping

AIM

To identify and map evidence describing components of neurodevelopmental follow-up care for children with congenital heart disease (CHD).

METHOD

This was a scoping review of studies reporting components of neurodevelopmental follow-up programmes/pathways for children with CHD. Eligible publications were identified through database searches, citation tracking, and expert recommendations. Two independent reviewers screened studies and extracted data. An evidence matrix was developed to visualize common characteristics of care pathways. Qualitative content analysis identified implementation barriers and enablers.

RESULTS

The review included 33 studies. Twenty-one described individual care pathways across the USA (n = 14), Canada (n = 4), Australia (n = 2), and France (n = 1). The remainder reported surveys of clinical practice across multiple geographical regions. While heterogeneity in care existed across studies, common attributes included enrolment of children at high-risk of neurodevelopmental delay; centralized clinics in children's hospitals; referral before discharge; periodic follow-up at fixed ages; standardized developmental assessment; and involvement of multidisciplinary teams. Implementation barriers included service cost/resourcing, patient burden, and lack of knowledge/awareness. Multi-level stakeholder engagement and integration with other services were key drivers of success.

INTERPRETATION

Defining components of effective neurodevelopmental follow-up programmes and care pathways, along with enhancing and expanding guideline-based care across regions and into new contexts, should continue to be priorities.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

Twenty-two different neurodevelopmental follow-up care pathways/programmes were published, originating from four countries. Twelve additional publications described broad practices for neurodevelopmental follow-up across regions Common attributes across eligibility, service structure, assessment processes, and care providers were noted. Studies reported programme acceptability, uptake, cost, and effectiveness. Implementation barriers included service cost/resourcing, patient burden, and lack of knowledge/awareness.

Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Children with Congenital Heart Disease: Ten Years After the American Heart Association Statement

Even before birth, children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at risk for neurodevelopmental concerns, with additional insults occurring as part of their treatment course and from subsequent exposures to socioeconomic stressors. With multiple affected neurodevelopmental domains, individuals with CHD face lifelong cognitive, academic, psychological, and quality-of-life difficulties. Early and repeated neurodevelopmental evaluation is key to receiving appropriate services. However, obstacles at the level of the environment, provider, patient, and family can make the completion of these evaluations difficult. Future neurodevelopmental endeavors should aim to evaluate CHD-specific programs, their effectiveness, and barriers to access.

The Feasibility and Acceptability of Remote Videoconference Use of the Brief Developmental Assessment Tool for Young Children with Congenital Heart Disease

Background: Young children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at heightened risk of developmental delay. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdowns presented an opportunity to test the feasibility of using a short neurodevelopmental assessment tool-the Brief Developmental Assessment (BDA)-remotely via new technologies. Methods: We tested the feasibility and acceptability of remote testing of the tool's 6 domains of development with 30 children younger than 5 years with CHD and 10 healthy controls. Results: Despite some technical issues, parents largely responded positively to the use of the remote assessment as opposed to traditional face-to-face appointments, citing the beneficial saving of time, money, and childcare. Conclusions: The acceptability of the remote use of the BDA for the developmental screening of children with CHD will allow for the possibility of increased screening for more children and earlier identification of developmental problems, both during and after COVID-19 restrictions.

Neurodevelopmental status and follow-up in preschool children with heart disease in London, UK

OBJECTIVE

To describe neurodevelopment and follow-up services in preschool children with heart disease (HD).

DESIGN

Secondary analysis of a prospectively collected multicentre dataset.

SETTING

Three London tertiary cardiac centres.

PATIENTS

Preschool children<5 years of age: both inpatients and outpatients.

METHODS

We analysed results of Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and parental report of follow-up services in a representative convenience sample evaluated between January 2014 and July 2015 within a previous study.

RESULTS

Of 971 preschool children: 577 (59.4%) had ≥1 heart operation, 236 (24.3%) had a known diagnosis linked to developmental delay (DD) ('known group') and 130 (13.4%) had history of clinical event linked to DD. On MSEL assessment, 643 (66.2%) had normal development, 181 (18.6%) had borderline scores and 147 (15.1%) had scores indicative of DD. Of 971 children, 609 (62.7%) were not receiving follow-up linked to child development and were more likely to be under these services with a known group diagnosis, history of clinical event linked to DD and DD (defined by MSEL). Of 236 in known group, parents of 77 (32.6%) and of 48 children not in a known group but with DD 29 (60.4%), reported no child development related follow-up. DD defined by MSEL assessment was more likely with a known group and older age at assessment.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings indicate that a 'structured neurodevelopmental follow-up pathway' in preschool children with HD should be considered for development and evaluation as children get older, with particular focus on those at higher risk.

Early morbidities following paediatric cardiac surgery: a mixed-methods study

Background

Over 5000 paediatric cardiac surgeries are performed in the UK each year and early survival has improved to > 98%.

Objectives

We aimed to identify the surgical morbidities that present the greatest burden for patients and health services and to develop and pilot routine monitoring and feedback.

Design and setting

Our multidisciplinary mixed-methods study took place over 52 months across five UK paediatric cardiac surgery centres.

Participants

The participants were children aged < 17 years.

Methods

We reviewed existing literature, ran three focus groups and undertook a family online discussion forum moderated by the Children’s Heart Federation. A multidisciplinary group, with patient and carer involvement, then ranked and selected nine key morbidities informed by clinical views on definitions and feasibility of routine monitoring. We validated a new, nurse-administered early warning tool for assessing preoperative and postoperative child development, called the brief developmental assessment, by testing this among 1200 children. We measured morbidity incidence in 3090 consecutive surgical admissions over 21 months and explored risk factors for morbidity. We measured the impact of morbidities on quality of life, clinical burden and costs to the NHS and families over 6 months in 666 children, 340 (51%) of whom had at least one morbidity. We developed and piloted methods suitable for routine monitoring of morbidity by centres and co-developed new patient information about morbidities with parents and user groups.

Results

Families and clinicians prioritised overlapping but also different morbidities, leading to a final list of acute neurological event, unplanned reoperation, feeding problems, renal replacement therapy, major adverse events, extracorporeal life support, necrotising enterocolitis, surgical infection and prolonged pleural effusion. The brief developmental assessment was valid in children aged between 4 months and 5 years, but not in the youngest babies or 5- to 17-year-olds. A total of 2415 (78.2%) procedures had no measured morbidity. There was a higher risk of morbidity in neonates, complex congenital heart disease, increased preoperative severity of illness and with prolonged bypass. Patients with any morbidity had a 6-month survival of 81.5% compared with 99.1% with no morbidity. Patients with any morbidity scored 5.2 points lower on their total quality of life score at 6 weeks, but this difference had narrowed by 6 months. Morbidity led to fewer days at home by 6 months and higher costs. Extracorporeal life support patients had the lowest days at home (median: 43 days out of 183 days) and highest costs (£71,051 higher than no morbidity).

Limitations

Monitoring of morbidity is more complex than mortality, and hence this requires resources and clinician buy-in.

Conclusions

Evaluation of postoperative morbidity provides important information over and above 30-day survival and should become the focus of audit and quality improvement.

Future work

National audit of morbidities has been initiated. Further research is needed to understand the implications of feeding problems and renal failure and to evaluate the brief developmental assessment.

Funding

This project was funded by the NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health Services and Delivery Research; Vol. 8, No. 30. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

A referral pathway for potentially abnormal neurodevelopment in children with heart disease in the United Kingdom: a Delphi consensus

INTRODUCTION

Children with congenital heart disease have complex medical and neurodevelopmental needs. We aimed to develop a multi-professional consensus-based referral pathway applicable to action the results of the brief developmental assessment (BDA), a validated early recognition tool, that categorises the neurodevelopmental status as green (appropriate for age), amber (equivocal) or red (delayed) in children aged between 4 months and 5 years.

METHODS

A Delphi consensus survey detailing two scenarios-a child categorised as delayed (red) and another as equivocal (amber) on administration of the BDA at the time of discharge from the tertiary centre-was sent to 80 expert professionals from primary, secondary and tertiary care seeking agreement on next steps and referral pathways. An iterative process was proposed with a pre-defined rule of 75% for consensus.

RESULTS

The survey was completed by 77 Delphi panel experts in Round 1, 73 in Round 2 and 70 in Round 3. Consensus was achieved (1) for the child with amber or red BDA, the child should be under the care of a paediatrician with expertise in cardiology (PEC) (or general paediatrician if no PEC) based at their local hospital, (2) for the child with red BDA, the PEC should initiate referral to community services at first assessment, (3) for child with amber BDA, a re-assessment by the health visitor should occur within 1-2 months, with referral to community services and notification to the PEC if on-going concerns.

CONCLUSIONS

The Delphi process enabled a consensus to be reached between health professionals on referral pathways for specialist neurodevelopmental assessment/treatment for children with heart disease, in response to amber or red BDA results. The agreed referral pathway, if implemented, could underpin a national guideline to address and intervene on the neurodevelopmental difficulties in children with heart disease.

Validation of the Brief Developmental Assessment in pre-school children with heart disease

Introduction The objective of this study was to prospectively validate the "Brief Developmental Assessment", which is a new early recognition tool for neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children with heart disease that was developed for use by cardiac teams.

METHODS

This was a prospective validation study among a representative sample of 960 pre-school children with heart disease from three United Kingdom tertiary cardiac centres who were analysed grouped into five separate age bands.

RESULTS

The "Brief Developmental Assessment" was successfully validated in the older four age bands, but not in the youngest representing infants under the age of 4 months, as pre-set validation thresholds were met - lower 95% confidence limit for the correlation coefficient above 0.75 - in terms of agreement of scores between two raters and with an external measure the "Mullen Scales of Early Learning". On the basis of American Association of Pediatrics Guidelines, which state that the sensitivity and specificity of a developmental screening tool should fall between 70 and 80%, "Brief Developmental Assessment" outcome of Red meets this threshold for detection of Mullen scores >2 standard deviations below the mean.

CONCLUSION

The "Brief Developmental Assessment" may be used to improve the quality of assessment of children with heart disease. This will require a training package for users and a guide to action for abnormal results. Further research is needed to determine how best to deploy the "Brief Developmental Assessment" at different time points in children with heart disease and to determine the management strategy in infants younger than 4 months old.