Screening of neurodevelopmental delays in four communities of Mexico and Cuba

Nursing personnel applied a computerized evaluation instrument, Neuropediatric Development (NPED), and compared the prevalence of deviations from normal neurodevelopment in four communities of two Latin American countries, Mexico and Cuba. At the same time the feasibility of introducing this tool into Mexican local health centers was assessed.

The NPED screening tool was applied to 400 children 1-60 months old from two suburban and one urban communities of Mexico and one urban community of Cuba.

The NPED instrument was developed at the Neurosciences Centre of Cuba (Santos, & Pérez-Ábalo, 2011; Santos, Pérez-Abalo, & Álvarez, 2007), and explores three neurodevelopmental areas: language/communication, psychomotor, and sensory maturation (hearing/vision).

Global (21.5%), language (16.5%), psychomotor (5.8%), and sensory (vision/audition; 2.3%/7%) failures were observed. Among Mexican communities, apart from the hearing test in which the urban community showed a significantly higher percentage of failures (p < .001), there were no other significant differences. When compared, the Cuban community showed a significantly higher proportion of audition failures in relation to the Mexican communities.

The prevalence of deviations from normal neurodevelopment was highly similar between both countries, and the NPED system fulfils the necessary requisites for mass screening to be applied by nursing staff at a primary care level.