Does intrauterine growth restriction affect quality of life in adulthood?

Dale Spence ^1*, Fiona A Alderdice ¹, Moira C Stewart ¹, Henry L Halliday ¹ and Angela H Bell ²

¹ Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom
² Health Promotion Agency, CEMACH Office, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: d.spence{at}qub.ac.uk.

Accepted 19 March 2007

Abstract

Objective: To compare health-related quality of life in 50-year old adults who were born at term ( 37 to 42 weeks’ gestation) with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR, birthweight < 10th centile) and a group born at term but not growth restricted (> 10th centile).

Design: Case control study.

Setting: A large regional maternity hospital.

Patients: Two hundred and thirty five adults who were born between 1954 and 1956 in Royal Maternity Hospital, Belfast. One hundred and eleven cases who were born with IUGR and 124 normal birthweight for gestation controls were compared.

Main Outcome Measure: Health-related quality of life in adulthood was assessed using the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36).

Results: The two groups reported similar health-related quality of life on each of the eight dimensions of the SF-36 and there were no significant differences between them. Adjusting for potential confounding variables did not alter this conclusion.

Conclusions: The similarity of SF-36 scores indicated that those born with growth restriction did not perceive this to adversely influence health-related quality of life at age 50 years compared to those born with normal birthweight.

Keywords: case control study, intrauterine growth restriction, quality of life, term infants

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