Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1080/01942638.2024.2449387

Publication Title

Physical & Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics

Volume

Article in Press

Pages

1-30

Abstract

Aim

To assess the effectiveness of family-centered care (FCC) interventions on motor and neurobehavior development of very preterm infants.

Method

Randomized and quasi-randomized trials assessing the effect of FCC on motor and neurobehavioral outcomes in very preterm infants (28–32 wk gestation) were included. Five electronic databases and grey literature were searched from January 2010 to August 2022. Two reviewers independently screened the titles/abstracts and full texts, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data. The Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 Tool and GRADE were used for risk and evidence certainty assessments. Meta-analysis or narrative synthesis was performed based on data availability and heterogeneity.

Results

Seventeen trials with 21 publications were included. GRADE showed low to moderate evidence. At 24 months, FCC interventions improved motor development (Mean Difference (MD):5.00, 95% CI: 2.58–7.42), cognitive development (MD: 3.64, 95% CI: 1.15–6.12), and behavior development (MD: −2.40, 95% CI: −4.32, −0.48) compared to control groups. Further, the FCC showed minimal or inconclusive effects on language, communication, and personal social development measured anytime between newborn and 24 months of age.

Conclusions

Early initiated FCC interventions can be a promising approach to improve motor, cognition, and behavioral development in very preterm infants.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Data Availability

Article states: "The dataset generated from this review can be requested from the corresponding author."

ORCID

0000-0003-3993-3580 (Khurana)

Original Publication Citation

Raghupathy, M. K., Parsekar, S. S., Nayak, S. R., Karun, K. M., Khurana, S., Spittle, A. J., Lewis, L. E. S., & Rao, B. K. (2025). Effect of family-centered care interventions on motor and neurobehavior development of very preterm infants: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Physical & Occupational Therapy In Pediatrics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/01942638.2024.2449387

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