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The Feeding Impact Scales Development

Assessment tools should be both reliable and valid. Reliable tools are consistent, which means if you tested the same child twice int he same week, they should get the same score both times. Valid tools are accurate, which means they measure what they say they measure.

There are many ways to establish that a tool is reliable and valid. The important piece to look for is that both the reliability and validity have been tested.

There is currently one publication, The Impact of Feeding on the Parent and Family Scales (Feeding Impact Scales): Development and Psychometric Testing, published in the Journal of Nursing Measurement in 2020, that describes how the Feeding Impact Scales was developed, including its reliability and validity.

The Feeding Impact Scales assess how child feeding impacts both the parent and the family. The items for this tool were adapted from an existing tool. First, parents of children with feeding difficulties completed the proposed tool using an online survey. An analysis technique was used to evaluate the items and remove ones that were not contributing to the tool. Then, reliability and validity were tested, along with how readable the items were.

The results of these statistical analyses were that the tool was both reliable and valid.