Development of a clinical feeding assessment scale for very young infants in South Africa.
Mari Viviers, Alta Kritzinger, Bart Vinck
PMID 27796101WHAT IT FOUND
Five speech-language pathologists agreed a new checklist was needed to assess neonatal feeding and swallowing.
They revised the draft to be acceptable in content and format, but it has not been tested in patients.
Key findings
01All five experts agreed that a valid clinical feeding assessment tool was needed for neonates.
02After revision, all panel members agreed on the format, scoring system and feeding topics in the final checklist.
03Several draft items were removed because experts judged them subjective, ambiguous, repetitive or developmentally inappropriate.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only five experts took part, and expert agreement is not the same as patient outcome evidence. No infants were assessed with the scale, so its accuracy for diagnosing neonatal swallowing problems is unknown. One expert still considered the final scale too lengthy and some items subjective. South African and international experts differed about how long the scale should be, and the final version prioritised local needs. The Delphi method was used to reach consensus, not to test whether the scale works in practice.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that the Neonatal Feeding Assessment Scale can diagnose swallowing problems in infants. The study only reports expert agreement on content and format, and the authors say clinical assessment does not replace instrumental swallowing assessment.