Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale
Published on: August 25, 2014
Development of an abbreviated symptom score for the neonatal abstinence syndrome
I Chervoneva1, S C Adeniyi-Jones1,2, F Blanco1
1Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Objective:
We sought a shortened MOTHER neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and Finnegan score that would retain comparable performance characteristics of the full instrument.
Study Design:
Retrospective cohort.
Results:
In total, 124,170 MOTHER NAS scores between August 2007 and May 2016 from 775 infants (≥36 weeks) were examined. Classification and regression tree model identified the most important subsets of the scored variables. A 9-element shortened scale yielded >90% sensitivity and specificity to predict clinical endpoints based on the full 19-element MOTHER NAS score. Conversion of the data sets to the Finnegan score, and applying the same procedure resulted in a nine-element score with similar performance characteristics.
Conclusion:
Shortened scoring instruments were identified with the high-predictive power for clinical endpoints based on the 19-element full MOTHER NAS score. There was no substantial variation in performance for age, supporting the current practice of utilizing a single scoring tool regardless of postnatal age.
