Aim of the study

To provide a reliable and valid tool in Polish language for assessing the level of feeding difficulties among children from six months up to six years old by translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of the Montreal Children’s Hospital Feeding Scale (MCH-FS).

Material and methods

The translation and cross-cultural adaptation included: forward translation (by two independent translators), comparison of the two translated versions, blind back translation, comparison of the two back-translated versions, pilot testing, proofreading, and approval of the final version of the target language.

Results

To establish construct validity, 247 parents or caregivers of children completed the scale. The clinical sample included parents/caregivers (n = 124) of children referred to a feeding clinic, whereas the normative sample (n = 123) consisted of parents/caregivers of healthy children recruited from daycare centres. Statistically significant differences were found between the control group and children with feeding disorders for the total score (p < 0.001) and for each of the 14 items (p < 0.001). The instrument has strong internal consistency (α = 0.93). Test-retest reliability was obtained by re-administration of the MCH-FS to 84 subjects within a mean interval of 13.43 days. Test-retest correlation coefficients for the total score of the MCH-FS were 0.98 in the clinical group and in the normative group (p < 0.001), suggesting a high level of tool stability.

Discussion

The Polish version of the MCH-FS can be considered as a reliable and valid tool for screening the feeding difficulties in children.