A quantitative psychometric evaluation of an intervention for poor dietary variety in children with a feeding problem of clinical significance.

Few studies have been published that offer a quantitative evaluation of interventions for feeding problems of clinical significance. Twenty-four children referred to the service for clinically significant feeding problems were administered the Behavioral Pediatric Feeding Assessment Scale (BPFAS; W. Crist & A. Napier-Phillips, 2001) and the Child Feeding Assessment Questionnaire (CFAQ; G. Harris & I.W. Booth, 1992) before and after a duel targeted 16-week therapeutic intervention to improve dietary variety. Dietary variety was assessed through a food diary where only items that were accepted on more than one occasion were deemed to be part of the child's habitual diet. Results indicated that all subscales of the BPFAS and the CFAQ were responsive to the intervention, with scores falling from those of clinical significance to those more representative of non-feeding-problem children. Regression analysis indicated that children's problem scores on the BPFAS predicted 15% of the variance in increased dietary variety following the intervention. The outcome of this evaluation indicated that improving dietary variety in children with clinically significant feeding problems is challenging. With the right approach, however, large improvements can be observed relatively quickly.