A Pilot Study of Developing an Infant Sucking Tester Instrument

Most preterm infants experience oral feeding disorder. Sucking is the most appropriate way for oral feeding, but it may be immature in preterm infants. Regarding the increased risk of feeding problems in preterm infants, investigating and monitoring their sucking patterns to present appropriate and timely intervention is recommendedThe current research aimed to report the design of an instrument for measuring the suction pressure in preterm infants through a pilot study. We also checked the validity and reliability of the instrument.

A pilot study was conducted to measure the validity and reliability of this instrument. First, the instrument was developed, and in the next step, discriminant validity, test-retest reliability, and comparison in terms of sex were investigated by measuring the suction pressure of 20 full-term and 15 preterm infants. The Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon test were used to establish the discriminant validity, comparison in terms of sex, and test-retest reliability in SPSS v. 23 software.

Two groups showed a significant difference in the suction pressure (P<0.001) to support the discriminant validity of the instrument. We obtained satisfactory values for the test-retest reliability in two groups (r=0.97, P<0.001). Boys and girls did not significantly differ between full-term (P=0.9) and preterm infants groups (P=0.5).

Performing the pilot study on 35 infants through an infant sucker tester proved the instrument’s discriminant validity and test-retest reliability. However, conducting the studies with a larger sample size is essential to make this instrument available commercially.