Content Validity Testing of a Nurse-Led Pediatric Dysphagia Screening Tool for Acute and Critical Care Settings Using...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric healthcare
• Clinical assessment tools
• Swallowing disorders

Background:

• Pediatric oropharyngeal dysphagia screening tools are lacking in acute/critical care.
• Existing tools lack psychometric validation and reliability.
• This gap impacts timely diagnosis and intervention for hospitalized children.

Purpose of the Study:

• Establish content validity for the Children's Oral Feeding Screener (COFS).
• Develop a novel, nurse-led screening tool for pediatric acute and critical care settings.
• Address the need for reliable dysphagia screening in hospitalized children aged 0-16 years.

Main Methods:

• Two-round eDelphi study using Qualtrics.
• Multidisciplinary steering group guided tool development and consensus.
• International speech pathologists (n=50, 41 in R2) rated items on clinical presentations, oral trials, and dysphagia signs.

Main Results:

• Content validity achieved for COFS items based on >75% consensus.
• Final COFS includes 8 clinical presentations, 3 oral trial elements, and 14 dysphagia signs.
• Panelist feedback refined COFS headings and layout.

Conclusions:

• Content validity established for the COFS tool's core components.
• Further research needed on COFS construct validity, sensitivity, specificity, and feasibility.
• COFS has potential to improve dysphagia screening in pediatric acute/critical care.