The Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool in Puerto Rican Spanish: A Comparison between Dyads in Puerto Rico and Mainland United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Currently there are no validated pediatric feeding assessment tools available in Puerto Rican (PR) Spanish. This study aimed to (1) translate and culturally adapt the Pediatric Eating Assessment Tool (PediEAT) for use with PR Spanish speakers, (2) test the internal consistency of the adapted version, and (3) administer the translated and adapted PediEAT to a PR cohort and compare those results with age-matched toddlers in the mainland United States (US). We hypothesized that we would be able to effectively translate PediEAT into PR Spanish with high internal consistency and that infants in the PR cohort would have more parent-reported problematic feeding behaviors compared to the mainland US sample. The translated and culturally adapted PR Spanish PediEAT version was administered to 15 caregiver-toddler dyads in PR and the test demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.869). The mainland US cohort reported significantly higher PediEAT ratings of feeding difficulty than the PR cohort in the Selective/Restrictive Eating subscale (p = 0.031). This outcome may be attributed to cultural factors that are different in the PR community compared to the mainland. Future research is needed to explore these differences in more detail with a larger sample size.