Perinatal risk screening and infant outcome. Can predictions be improved with composite scales?

This study extended earlier research by identifying the specific items in the pool of items from five existing perinatal risk scales that correlate with specific infant outcome measures. Predictive items obtained from analyses of one sample of subjects were used to predict outcomes in two other samples, one drawn retrospectively and the other, prospectively. The result was an improvement over most existing perinatal risk scales in the ability to predict a greater number of outcome measures. Improvements in the amount of variance accounted for by the composite scales remain to be made.