Validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital stroke dysphagia screen test in patients with acute stroke

Özet

Objective: To perform the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Stroke Dysphagia Screen (BJH-SDS). Methods: One hundred forty patients with acute stroke were screened using the BJH-SDS within the first 24 hours of stroke and scored by two blinded independent expert observers, followed by endoscopic evaluations within 24 hours of the screening tests. Cronbach's alpha and item-to-total correlations were used to assess internal consistency. Interrater reliability analyses were performed. Flexible fiber optic endoscopic evaluation of swallow (FEES) was used to describe the validity of the measures. Results: The mean age of the patients was 67.20±12.82 years. The internal consistency of the test was good with Cronbach’s α values between 0.831 and 0.894, and there was a very good interrater agreement based on an intra-class correlation coefficient between 0.850 and 1.000. The item-to-total correlation for test items was between 0.493 and 0.712, exceeding the commonly accepted level of >0.3. There was a significant positive association between the total test scores of the raters and FEES levels (r=0.733 p=0.001 and r=0.744, p=0.001).Based on the total scores, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting the presence of dysphagia were 78.6% and 80 to 82.8%, respectively. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the Turkish version of the BJH-SDS is a valid and reliable instrument when determining dysphagia in patients with acute stroke.