The Children's Eating and Drinking Activity Scale: Interrater reliability, concurrent validity, and responsiveness.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric feeding and swallowing disorders
• Clinical assessment tools in speech-language pathology

Background:

• Accurate assessment of pediatric feeding and drinking is crucial for effective intervention.
• The Children's Eating and Drinking Activity Scale (CEDAS) is a tool designed to evaluate these activities.
• Evaluating the psychometric properties of CEDAS is essential for its clinical utility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the interrater reliability of the CEDAS.
• To assess the concurrent validity of the CEDAS using the Functional Status Scale (FSS).
• To evaluate the responsiveness of the CEDAS to changes in children's feeding status.

Main Methods:

• Interrater reliability was assessed via an online questionnaire completed by 39 speech and language therapists using 12 vignettes.
• Concurrent validity was evaluated by comparing CEDAS scores with the FSS feeding domain in 85 pediatric patients.
• Responsiveness was measured by analyzing CEDAS score changes from referral to discharge.

Main Results:

• Excellent interrater reliability for CEDAS was found (Krippendorff's α = 0.927).
• CEDAS demonstrated strong concurrent validity with the FSS (r_s = -0.77 to -0.99, p < 0.003).
• The scale was responsive to changes, showing significant score increases from referral to discharge (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• The Children's Eating and Drinking Activity Scale (CEDAS) exhibits excellent interrater reliability across various clinical settings.
• CEDAS is a responsive measurement tool with established construct validity for use in acute hospital environments.
• Findings support the use of CEDAS as a reliable and valid instrument for assessing pediatric eating and drinking activities.