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Abstract
Background: Accurate measurement of neonatal neurological integrity is critical for early identification of pre-term and full-term infants at-risk for developmental disability. The Neurobehavioural Assessment for Pre-term Infants (NAPI) was developed to measure the progression of neurobehavioural development in pre-term infants born between 32 weeks post-conceptional age (PCA) and term. This instrument has many unique advantages; however, criterion validity is unknown and results are subsequently difficult to interpret. Objectives: This study examined the concurrent validity of the NAPI against a criterion instrument, the Einstein Neonatal Neurobehavioural Assessment Scale (ENNAS), which measures similar constructs and has demonstrated excellent reliability and validity. Methods: A sample of 41 pre-term and full-term infants (40 ± 2 weeks) was assessed with the NAPI and ENNAS on the same day. Results: The findings demonstrated that correlations between similar NAPI clusters and ENNAS clusters ranged from 0.35–0.65 and correlations between many similar individual NAPI and ENNAS items ranged from 0.40–0.60. Two NAPI clusters also discriminated between normal, abnormal and suspect performance on the ENNAS. Conclusion: The NAPI has many unique advantages as a tool. It examines neonates serially, has established weekly normative data and requires minimal infant handling. This study provides new validation of the NAPI instrument.