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Lookup NU author(s): Deborah Annis-Marley, William Gray, Professor Miles WithamORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to European Geriatric Medicine Society 2025.Purpose: To develop and test a screening tool enabling care-home staff to identify residents with high-risk swallowing problems (dysphagia). Methods: The Nurse Dysphagia Screening Tool (NDST) was developed via an iterative, participatory process. A diagnostic evaluation study was performed in North-East of England care homes. We compared NDST with gold-standard speech and language therapist swallowing assessment risk category to derive sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values. Results: One hundred and seventy two residents (101 women) were included from 14 care homes, mean age 82.1 years (SD 10.6). Residents known to SLT, or with Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG) were excluded. 18/172 (11%) had high-risk swallow by gold-standard assessment. NDST was completed successfully on all participants. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were 72%, 92%, 50%, and 97%, respectively. Sensitivity was higher (100%) in high-volume care homes and for those recruited late in the study, suggesting a learning curve. Conclusion: NDST requires additional testing but can potentially identify high-risk dysphagia in care homes
Author(s): Heaney P, Annis-Marley D, Gray W, Jones L, Scott J, Witham MD
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Geriatric Medicine
Year: 2025
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 03/05/2025
Acceptance date: 18/03/2025
Date deposited: 21/03/2025
ISSN (print): 1878-7649
ISSN (electronic): 1878-7657
Publisher: Springer
URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-025-01194-z
DOI: 10.1007/s41999-025-01194-z
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/1ydm-rk97
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