RPTF

Montreal Children´s Hospital Feeding scale: Translation and contribution for the validation into european portuguese 

​

Ana Cláudia Lopes | Isabel Guimarães | Catarina Afonso

 

ABSTRACT

Objective: Adapt and contribute to the validation of the Montreal Children's Hospital Feeding Scale, in European Portuguese, which identifies the opinion of caregivers of children between six months and six years of age with eating disorders.

Methods: The study consisted of the following stages: i) cross cultural and linguistic adaptation through translation and back translation of the instrument for European Portuguese followed an analysis by the Delphi process. This version was submitted to a pre-test with a sample of five children caregivers and performed the final revision; ii) contribution to the validation. The scale was administered to caregivers of 30 typically developing children and 10 caregivers of children with eating disorders. Validation was obtained using factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) for the construct.

Results: The analysis of the scale by the experts resulted in high acceptability of the content of the items (71%) and excellent acceptance in relation to relevance (100%). Statistically significant differences (p <0.05) were found between the groups studied for the total score and for five of the 14 questions. The instrument has strong internal consistency (alpha=0.898). The factor analysis explains 73% of the total variance with only three components of the scale.

Conclusion: The Portuguese version of this scale has linguistic and cultural acceptability, showed accuracy in distinguishing between the opinion of caregivers, contributing to the preliminary validation of the Portuguese version of the instrument in the Portuguese population, although its applicability only should result after the improving its accuracy.

 

KEYWORDS: Feeding/eating scale; Eating disorders; Sensory disorders; Pediatrics