Introduction: The newborn’s ability to feed is essential for discharge. The use of scales to assess the acquisition of oral feeding skills allows to identify feeding problems. Objective: To identify a tool for assessing nutritional skills in preterm infants that is suitable to be introduced to our neonatal intensive care unit (University Medical Center Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) focusing on validity, ease of application and relevance and to apply it to our clinical context. Materials and Methods. Between November and December 2024, an extensive literature search was conducted using the PubMed, Cochrane and Cinahl databases. We selected the POFRAS scale because of its structured methodology and applicability. A sample of 10 nurses from our neonatal intensive care unit were divided into two groups of 5 each: nurses trained on the correct use of the POFRAS scale (intervention group) and untrained group. The observed population was 30 preterm infantsof a gestational age between 32 and 36 weeks with spontaneous breathing and stable vital signs. All infants with craniofacial deformities, congenital heart anomalies and neurological disorders or syndromes were excluded. The assessments took place 15 minutes before the scheduled time for the first oral feeding. Results: Out of 30 preterm infants included in the study, 17 were females and 13 were males, with an average birth weight of 1830 grams. There was a significant difference between the intervention group and the control group. In the intervention group in which the POFRAS scale was used, 53.33% of the newborns (equivalent to 16 newborns) showed readiness for the transition to bottle feeding. In the control group, which did not use the POFRAS scale, only 43.33% (equivalent to 13 newborns) showed readiness to wean from the tube. There was a significant increase of 10% in the number of newborns ready for weaning from tube in the group assessed with POFRAS which is an easy and rapid tool to use in clinical practice. Conclusion: Assessment scales are becoming increasingly important because they allow not only an objective and shared assessment among healthcare workers of the state of maturation of the newborn’s feeding function, but they also represent a guide for the nurse in determining interventions aimed at facilitating feeding and reducing the length of hospital stay. We found that PORFAS scale is suitable for implementation to our neonatal intensive care unit.
