Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Health and Sciences, North Carolina Central University, NC, USA.
Department of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC.
J Neonatal Perinatal Med. 2022;15(2):317-325. doi: 10.3233/NPM-210869.
Currently there is limited information to guide health professionals regarding the optimal time frame to initiate safe and effective oral feedings to preterm infants. The study aims to revise and validate a streamlined version of the Traditional Chinese-Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale, the TC-POFRAS®, and evaluate its construct validity in the clinical decisions regarding feeding readiness of preterm infants.
Eighty-one clinically stable preterm infants were assessed using the TC-POFRAS for oral feeding readiness. Item-total correlation analysis was used to check if any item was inconsistent with the averaged TC-POFRAS scores. Cronbach's α coefficient was used to evaluate the inter-item consistency. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the coherence of variables to reorganize assessment domains. The revised version of TC-POFRAS (TC-POFRAS®) was developed and a new cut-off score based on discriminant accuracy was established.
Based on the results from statistical analysis, five items ("lips posture," "tongue posture," "biting reflex," "gag reflex," and "tongue cupping") were deleted from the original TC-POFRAS to form the TC-POFRAS®. The TC-POFRAS®'s global accuracy was 92.1%. The cut-off value of 19 was the one that presented the most optimization of sensitivity based on specificity. The TC-POFRAS® was reconstructed into corrected gestational age and five behavioral domains.
The TC-POFRAS® is considered a valid, safe, and accurate objective instrument to assist health professionals to initiate oral feeding of preterm infants.
目前，关于指导卫生专业人员确定开始对早产儿进行安全有效的口服喂养的最佳时间框架的信息有限。本研究旨在修订和验证简体中文版早产儿经口喂养准备评估量表（TC-POFRAS）的简化版，并评估其在评估早产儿喂养准备情况的临床决策中的结构有效性。
使用 TC-POFRAS 对 81 名临床稳定的早产儿进行经口喂养准备情况评估。采用项目-总分相关分析来检查是否有任何项目与平均 TC-POFRAS 评分不一致。使用克朗巴赫 α 系数评估项目间的一致性。采用探索性因子分析确定变量的一致性，以重新组织评估领域。开发了修订版的 TC-POFRAS（TC-POFRAS®），并建立了基于判别准确性的新截断分数。
根据统计分析的结果，从原始 TC-POFRAS 中删除了五个项目（“口唇姿势”、“舌位”、“咬反射”、“吞咽反射”和“舌卷”），形成了 TC-POFRAS®。TC-POFRAS®的总体准确率为 92.1%。基于特异性，19 是最优化灵敏度的截断值。TC-POFRAS®被重建为矫正胎龄和五个行为领域。
TC-POFRAS®被认为是一种有效、安全、准确的客观工具，可帮助卫生专业人员为早产儿启动经口喂养。
