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

Early adolescence marks a critical period for the onset of psychiatric symptoms, with 50% ofmental disorders emerging before age 18. Recent evidence points to individuals being bornpreterm and/or with low birth weight (henceforth, PTB) having an increased risk of developingmental disorders in adolescence. Surprisingly, existing early detection and intervention strategiesin adolescence are not tailored to PTB needs and profiles. The previous use of several disorder-specific instruments complicates unified, efficient screening. Thus, here we characterisedmental health profiles of 10–14-year-old PTB adolescents while testing the applicability of thewidely used Diagnostic System for mental disorders for children and adolescents – III (DISYPS–III). We collected data on the frequency of experiencing mental health challenges from 225 youngadolescents (M=12.03 years) from the longitudinal German Neonatal Network (GNN) who wereborn very preterm and/or light (M=28.03 weeks, M=999.62 g) using the DISYPS–III screeningquestionnaire. A confirmatory factor analysis replicated the DISYPS–III’ factorial structure andinternal consistency for 10-14-year-old PTB adolescents. Overall, PTB adolescents reportedsignificantly more mental health challenges than the DISYPS–III community norm sample. Resultsalso replicated specific findings of mental health challenges from other PTB cohorts andcountries, such as a higher number of comorbidities in adolescents diagnosed with ADD thanADHD. These findings of an elevated psychological burden suggest a need for structured PTBscreening of long-term mental health outcomes in adolescence that include 10-year-old PTBindividuals; with the DISYPS–III being a suitable screening instrument.