Department of Family Medicine, Queen's University, 220 Bagot St., P.O. Bag 8888, Kingston, ON, K7L5E9, Canada.
Centre for Studies in Primary Care, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
BMC Pediatr. 2021 Apr 23;21(1):196. doi: 10.1186/s12887-021-02674-4.
Household food insecurity (FI), even at marginal levels, is associated with poor child health outcomes. The Nutrition Screening Tool for Every Preschooler (NutriSTEP®) is a valid and reliable 17-item parent-completed measure of nutrition risk and includes a single item addressing FI which may be a useful child-specific screening tool. We evaluated the diagnostic test properties of the single NutriSTEP® FI question using the 2-item Hunger Vital Sign™ as the criterion measure in a primary care population of healthy children ages 18 months to 5 years.
The sample included 1174 families, 53 (4.5%) of which were marginally food secure. An affirmative response to the single NutriSTEP® question "I have difficulty buying food I want to feed my child because food is expensive" had a sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 91% and demonstrated good construct validity when compared with the Hunger Vital Sign™.
The single NutriSTEP® question may be an effective screening tool in clinical practice to identify marginal food security in families with young children and to link families with community-based services or financial assistance programs including tax benefits.
TARGet Kids! practice-based research network (Registered June 5, 2013 at www.clinicaltrials.gov ; NCT01869530); www.targetkids.ca.
即使处于边缘水平，家庭食物不安全也与儿童健康状况不佳有关。幼儿营养筛查工具（NutriSTEP®）是一种有效的、可靠的 17 项家长完成的营养风险测量工具，其中包含一个针对家庭食物不安全的单一项目，这可能是一种有用的儿童特定筛查工具。我们使用 2 项饥饿生命体征作为标准测量方法，评估了单个 NutriSTEP®家庭食物不安全问题的诊断测试特性，研究对象是年龄在 18 个月至 5 岁之间的健康儿童的初级保健人群。
该样本包括 1174 个家庭，其中 53 个（4.5%）家庭处于边缘食物安全状态。对单个 NutriSTEP®问题“我很难购买我想给孩子吃的食物，因为食物太贵了”的肯定回答具有 85%的敏感性和 91%的特异性，与饥饿生命体征相比具有良好的结构有效性。
单个 NutriSTEP®问题可能是临床实践中识别有年幼子女的家庭处于边缘食物安全状态的有效筛查工具，并将家庭与社区服务或财务援助计划（包括税收优惠）联系起来。
TARGet Kids! 基于实践的研究网络（2013 年 6 月 5 日在 www.clinicaltrials.gov 注册；NCT01869530）；www.targetkids.ca。
