Abstract
Preterm infants have a heightened risk of feeding problems. The NEO can be used to assess prefeeding or oral feeding capacity, and the scoring criteria are based on the infant’s current postmenstrual age. Previous work on the tool demonstrates that the NEO holds promise for being an important and psychometrically sound measurement of feeding for preterm infants in the NICU. In this talk, testing procedures and scoring of the NEO will be introduced.
Primary Author and Speaker: Bobbi Pineda
Preterm infants have a heightened risk of feeding problems. However, there are few standardized feeding evaluations that quantify this important construct for young infants in the NICU. The Neonatal Eating Outcome (NEO) assessment was developed to assess feeding skills in the NICU, while considering the unique developmental changes that occur from preterm birth until term equivalent age.
The NEO can be used to assess pre-feeding or oral feeding capacity, and the scoring criteria are based on the infant’s current postmenstrual age. The assessment, therefore, does not discredit age-appropriate feeding behaviors, such as demonstrating poor arousal or suck-swallow-breathe at 34 weeks postmenstrual age. It can be used with bottle fed or breastfed infants. Readiness to orally feed, safety, as well as the need for supplemental feeding is ascertained during the NEO assessment. The assessment aims to identify whether specific feeding behaviors are age-appropriate, immature or altered.
While the NEO assessment is in its infancy, content validity was established through the participation of 11 neonatal therapy feeding experts, who were used to provide insights into what behaviors make up the construct of feeding, to identify when behaviors are deemed normal/ immature/ altered, and to provide suggestions to optimize the tool. After extensive revision, the reliability of the NEO was assessed using 7 neonatal therapists who evaluated feeding of 5 infants (via video) using the NEO following a 1 ½ to 2 hour training session. The intraclass correlation for the NEO was 0.734, which is considered excellent. The assessment is currently undergoing RASCH analysis.
Previous work on the tool demonstrates that the NEO holds promise for being an important and psychometrically sound measurement of feeding for preterm infants in the NICU. In this talk, testing procedures and scoring of the NEO will be introduced.
Pineda, R., Harris, R., Foci, F., Roussin, J., & Wallendorf, M. (2018). Neonatal Eating Outcome Assessment: tool development and inter-rater reliability. Acta Paediatrica, 107(3), 414-424.
Pineda, R., Luong, A., Ryckman, J., & Smith, J. (2018). Pacifier use in newborns: related to socioeconomic status but not to early feeding performance. Acta Paediatrica, 107(5), 806-810.