Pediatric Nausea Assessment Tool (PeNAT) – Psychometric Evaluation in Local Language

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) adversely affect the quality of life (QoL) of pediatric cancer patients. Despite standard guidelines for prevention, suboptimal control of emesis persists in clinical practice. Nausea assessment in children is challenging due to its subjective nature and the lack of validated tools.

The original Pediatric Nausea Assessment Tool (PeNAT)-English, validated for children aged 4-18 years, employs a standard script and visual scale to help children differentiate nausea from vomiting. For this study, PeNAT was translated and adapted to Hindi – considering the linguistic diversity in India.

The findings demonstrated good reliability and validity of PeNAT-Hindi, allowing children to differentiate between nausea and vomiting across various factors, except in the 9 to <13years subgroup. The tool proved effective in assessing severity and discriminating pain from nausea. However, responsiveness was modest due to a short follow-up period post-chemotherapy.

PeNAT-Hindi can be utilized in clinical practice and research to determine nausea prevalence and severity, aiding tailored CINV prophylaxis in the Hindi-speaking Indian population. The need for more language-specific psychometric evaluations in the Indian context, especially considering cultural and language barriers, is emphasized. Furthermore, the translation and psychometric evaluations could be extended to other studies involving cancer patients' QoL, survivors, and the psychological impact on parents.

Source: Peyam S, Bansal D. Indian Journal of Pediatrics. 2024 Feb;91(2):117-8.