Net Promoter Score Model for Evaluating Paediatric Medicine Acceptability: Validation and Feasibility Study

Area of Science:

• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Paediatric Drug Development
• Sensory Analysis

Background:

• Assessing medicine acceptability in children is vital but complex due to sensory factors.
• Traditional evaluation methods lack standardization and are difficult to compare across studies.
• There is a need for a simplified, standardized approach to measure medicine acceptability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simplified, standardized Medicine Acceptability Score (MAS).
• To introduce the Net Promoter Score (NPS) framework for assessing paediatric medicine acceptability.
• To create a single metric encompassing diverse sensory attributes.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of taste assessment data from nine paediatric formulations across four studies.
• Calculation of MAS by defining an optimal response categorization range.
• Validation of MAS across different age groups and formulations for reliability and discriminatory power.

Main Results:

• The developed MAS effectively discriminated between acceptable and unacceptable paediatric medicine formulations.
• MAS provides a practical and reliable tool for pharmaceutical formulation development.
• The score offers a single metric for diverse sensory attributes.

Conclusions:

• The MAS presents a novel, standardized metric for paediatric medicine acceptability, overcoming limitations of traditional methods.
• Further research is recommended to establish benchmark scores for chronic and acute medications.
• This standardization aims to benefit the pharmaceutical industry in medicine acceptability assessment.