The Montreal children's hospital feeding scale: A brief bilingual screening tool for identifying feeding problems

  • Maria Ramsay*
  • , Chantal Martel
  • , Mafalda Porporino
  • , Catherine Zygmuntowicz
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

125 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To establish the psychometric characteristics of a newly developed, brief bilingual 14-item parent report tool (The Montreal Children's Hospital Feeding Scale [MCH-Feeding Scale]) designed to identify feeding problems in children six months to six years of age. METHODS: To establish construct validity, 198 mothers of children visiting community paediatrician's offices (normative sample) and 174 mothers of children referred to a feeding clinic (clinical sample) completed the scale. Test-retest reliability was obtained by the re-administration of the MCH-Feeding Scale to 25 children in each sample. RESULTS: Excellent construct validity was confirmed when the mean [± SD] scores of the normative and clinical samples were compared (32.65±12.73 versus 60.48±13.04, respectively; P<0.01). Test-retest reliabilities were high for both groups (normative r=0.845, clinical r=0.92). CONCLUSION: The MCH-Feeding Scale can be used by paediatricians and other health care professionals for quick identification of feeding problems.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)147-151
Number of pages5
JournalPaediatrics and Child Health
Volume16
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Assessment of health care needs
  • Child
  • Failure to thrive
  • Feeding and eating disorders of childhood
  • Feeding behaviour
  • Infant

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