Pediatric Assessment Scale for Severe Feeding Problems: Validity and Reliability of a New Scale for Tube-Fed Children

Abstract

Background: This study reports data on the validity and reliability of a new parent report measure, the Pediatric Assessment Scale for Severe Feeding Prob- lems, designed to assess progress in the development of oral eating skills for children who need prolonged tube feeding. Methods: The questionnaire was completed by parents of 3 groups of children. The first group consisted of 17 children who received all of their nutrition by tube feedings, a second group of 30 children who were oral eaters but required supplementation by tube feedings, and a third group of 27 children who were referred for feeding difficulties but were not receiving any tube feed- ing. A subset of parents from each group completed the measure a second time approximately 2 to 4 weeks after completing the initial questionnaire in order to examine the reliability of the measure. Results: The mean scores (scale of 0 to 66) on the measure were 7.3 for completely tube-fed children, 30.0 for partially tube-fed children, and 46.8 for referred, non–tube-fed children. The correlation between first and second administration of the measure was .98. Conclusions: The validity and reliability of the Pediatric Assessment Scale for Severe Feeding Problems appears to be adequate. The new measure should allow clinicians to better rate initial severity of feeding difficul- ties and to track the progress of children as they advance from being totally tube-fed to completely orally fed.