1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«Using a population-based birth cohort, the purpose of this paper is to examine the prospective associations between several child (low birth weight, early antibiotics use, stressful life events, anxiety symptoms) and family (maternal health, socioeconomic status) characteristics and children’s physical infections (as measured by the frequency of antibiotic treatments) in fourth grade.» (p. 184)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
Les données proviennent d’un sous-échantillon (n=951) de l’Étude longitudinale du développement des enfants au Québec (ELDEQ).

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«The results show developmental continuity between antibiotic treatment use at baseline (kindergarten) and fourth grade. Children who use more antibiotics in their early childhood years seem to be more likely to use them four years later. Some children may thus be more vulnerable than others to physical infections and this vulnerability may persist for several years. […] As expected, children who were rated as more anxious in the spring of kindergarten by their teacher were more likely to receive antibiotic treatments four years later. This result converges with previous findings, which have shown an association between stress, anxiety, and chronic illness in adult samples as well as initial results from studies based on child samples. […] Interestingly, major parent-reported stressful events in early childhood, like parental divorce, death of a parent, or moving, as well as living in a low-income family, were not associated with later child physical infections. It is possible that these stressful events reported by the parents, were not perceived as being stressful for children.» (p. 187)