Translation and Validation of the TOR-BSST^© into Brazilian Portuguese for Adults with Stroke

Brazil has a higher rate of dysphagia in stroke patients compared to developed countries, but does not have a fully validated method for early identification of dysphagia in this population. The aim of this study is to translate the TOR-BSST^© into Brazilian Portuguese and assess the newly translated version for reliability and validity with Brazilian adult patients with stroke. The translation of the TOR-BSST^© followed a multi-step process, according to the International Quality of Life Assessment project. For validation, we included patients with age ≥ 18 years and stroke diagnosis confirmed by neuroimaging and tolerance for videofluoroscopic swallowing assessment. The BR-PT_final TOR-BSST^© was administered by two trained screeners within two hours of videofluoroscopy. All assessors were independent and blinded. Estimates for reliability used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and for accuracy both sensitivity (SN) and negative predictive (NP) values were used, along with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Sixty patients were enrolled and tested for a mean (SD) of 14.4 (6.9) days from last seen normal. Of all the patients, 41 (68.3%) failed the BR-PT_final TOR-BSST^© and 21 (35%) were scored to have dysphagia on videofluoroscopy, of which 11 (52.4%) had mild dysphagia. The overall reliability between screeners was satisfactory (ICC = 0.59; 95% CI 0.32 to 0.76). The SN and NP values for the BR-PT_final TOR-BSST^© were 85.7% (95% CI 0.62–0.96) and 84.2% (95% CI 0.72–0.95), respectively. The TOR-BSST^© was successfully translated to Brazilian Portuguese with the BR-PT_final TOR-BSST^© proven to have high sensitivity and negative predictive values when compared to gold standard videofluoroscopy.