Reliability of the S-FLEX® device to measure non-nutritive sucking pressure in newborns

ABSTRACT

Purpose

to establish the reliability of the S-FLEX® to measure non-nutritive sucking pressure in full-term newborns.

Methods

a cross-sectional and quantitative study was conducted in a tertiary hospital, on 30 one- to three-days-old infants born healthy and at term. Each newborn was evaluated twice, each time by a different examiner, at an interval of 4 hours. In each assessment, maximum and mean non-nutritive sucking pressure were measured three times consecutively. The reliability of the instrument was investigated by calculating the repeatability and reproducibility of these measurements. Repeatability was determined by analyzing the consecutive measures taken by each examiner using repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Results

the maximum sucking pressure was found to be 10.44 (± 2.25), 10.12 (± 2.25) and 9.73 (± 2.61) mmHg, (p = 0.120), in the first, second and third consecutive measurements, respectively. In the second evaluation, the values were 10.10 (± 2.35), 9.98 (± 2.02) and 10.37 (± 2.29) mmHg, (p = 0.404). The measurements of mean sucking pressure taken by examiner A in the first evaluation were 3.64 (± 1.04), 3.59 (± 1.04) and 3.56 (± 1.03) mmHg, (p = 0.852), respectively, and, in the second evaluation, 3.59 (± 1.04), 3.51 (± 0.92) and 3.63 (± 1.04) mmHg, (p = 0.721). The correlation coefficients between measurements of maximum and mean sucking pressure were 0.708 (p = 0.001) and 0.828 (p<0.001), which are indicative of good and excellent correlations, respectively.

Conclusion

The S-FLEX® can provide reliable measurements of maximum and mean non-nutritive sucking pressure in healthy full-term newborns.

Keywords:
Sucking behavior; Newborns; Reproducibility of results; Breast feeding; Pacifiers