PO06 - Cross cultural validation of the preterm oral feeding readiness assessment scale (POFRAS).

UNLABELLED Theme: Cross-cultural nursing. INTRODUCTION Preterm infants have to acquire neurological skills to begin breast or bottle feeding. The literature review suggested the need of a tool to assess the readiness of preterm infants for the transition from tube to oral feeding. Currently, there is not such a tool in the Italian context. AIM To perform the cross-cultural validation of POFRAS from English to Italian. METHOD We followed international guidelines to design and conduct the process (forward translations, synthesis, pilot test to assess the comprehensibility of the contents, back translations, synthesis). RESULTS The Italian version was approved by the author of POFRAS. DISCUSSION The validation process involved several professional figures (translators, paediatric nurses, a physiotherapist, a research nurse) to obtain conceptual and semantic correspondence between the two versions. CONCLUSIONS The Italian version of POFRAS is ready to undergo the statistical validation process, before it is used with the preterm infants.