Eating Assessment Tool (EAT —10) Scores to Detect Self-Reported Dysphagia in Brazilians

The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the scores, sensitivity, and specificity of the method to define self-reported dysphagia in Brazilians. EAT-10 scores were evaluated in 443 healthy individuals (273 women and 170 men), aged 20 to 84  years, with no swallowing difficulties or diseases, and 72 patients with diseases that cause dysphagia (35 women and 37 men), aged 29 to 88 years. Each of the 10 instrument items has a 0–4 rating scale, in which 0 indicates no problem and 4, a severe problem; total results range from 0 to 40. T he median EAT-10 score of healthy subjects was 0 (range: 0–20), and that of patients was 14.5 (range: 1–40). Considering a ≥ 3 cutoff score to define dysphagia risk, it was self-reported by 97.2% of patients with dysphagia and 9.5% of no-disease individuals (97.2% sensitivity and 90.7% spe cificity). The positive predictive value of the test was 63% and the negative predictive value was 99.5%. Healthy women had higher scores (median 0, range: 0–20) than healthy men (median 0, range: 0–8,p  < 0.01) and more results indicative of self-reported dysphagia (11.7%) than healthy men (5.9%). The EAT-10 cutoff score to detect self-reported dysphagia in Brazilians should be 3, as previously considered. Healthy women complain more of self-reported dysphagia than healthy men. The test has high s ensitivity and specificity.
Source: Dysphagia - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research