ABSTRACT
Objective To study the reliability, validity, sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of the Standardized Swallowing Assessment (SSA) in assessing swallowing function. Methods Sixty-seven stroke patients with dysphagia participated in the study. They were assessed twice with the SSA within 3 days. In addition, the patients' swallowing was also assessed using videofluoroscopy. Results There was high correlation in all items of the SSA between the two separate assessment sessions. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.85 for intrarater re- liability and 0.82 for interrater reliability. The SSA and videoflouroscopy results were highly correlated in terms of their total scores (r = -0.86,P≤0.01). Using the videoflouroscopy result as the standard, the sensitivity and spe- cificity of the SSA were 77.8% and 68.1% , respectively. At the same time, the positive and negative predictive val- ues were 48.3% and 88.9% , respectively. Conclusions The SSA has satisfactory reliability and validity, and higher sensitivity and specificity than videoflouroscopy. It is recommended for assessing swallowing with stroke pa- tients.