Is there a 'bright future' for another screening test in pediatrics?

摘要

In this issue of the Archives, Lanzi et al. present a 3-question screening tool (the PREP) that, when given to pregnant adolescents, identifies those whose infants are at increased risk for a host of adverse socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes. These findings are timely and relevant to the aims of pediatrics. Improving the socioemotional outcomes of young children and preventing toxic stress has been recently promoted in a policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics. An ingenious and effective part of the PREP question set is the indirect question "Now that you are pregnant, are there some new areas in which you are accepting responsibility or want to become responsible in?" A "no" answer to this question detected the most risk.