Turkish Version of the Montreal Children's Hospital Feeding Scale: Validity and Reliability Study in Children With Cerebral Palsy

Background: This study was conducted to translate The Montreal Children's Hospital Feeding Scale (MCH-FS) into Turkish and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Turkish version (T-MCH-FS) in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: The study involved 160 children (70 children with CP and 90 typically developing children) aged 18 to 72 months. Karaduman Chewing Performance Scale (KCPS), Paediatric version of the Eating Assessment Tool-10 (PEDI-EAT-10) and Behavioral Pediatrics Feeding Assessment Scale (BPFAS) were used to examine the construct validity of the T-MCH-FS. Results: Internal consistency was sufficient with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.820. There were correlations between the T-MCH-FS and the KCPS (r = 0.377, p < 0.001), the PEDI-EAT-10 (r = 0.655, p < 0.001) and the BPFAS scores for total frequency, child frequency, parent frequency, restriction and poor strategies (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The T-MCH-FS was found to be a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate feeding problems in children with CP and typically developing children.