Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Judging The Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Assessment Tools To Guide Future Tool Development: The Use Of Clinimetrics As Opposed To Psychometrics, Philip M. Westgate, Enrique Gomez-Pomar

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

In the face of the current Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) epidemic, there is considerable variability in the assessment and management of infants with NAS. In this manuscript, we particularly focus on NAS assessment, with special attention given to the popular Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Score (FNAS). A major instigator of the problem of variable practices is that multiple modified versions of the FNAS exist and continue to be proposed, including shortened versions. Furthermore, the validity of such assessment tools has been questioned, and as a result, the need for better tools has been suggested. The ultimate purpose of this manuscript, therefore, …