Development of an Abbreviated Symptom Score for the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

OBJECTIVE: We sought a shortened MOTHER NAS and Finnegan score that would retain comparable performance characteristics of the full instrument. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort RESULTS: 124,170 MOTHER NAS scores between August 2007 and May 2016 from 775 infants (≥ 36 weeks) were examined. Classification and regression tree model identified the most important subsets of the scored variables. A 9 element shortened scale yielded > 90% sensitivity and specificity to predict clinical endpoints based on the full 19 element MOTHER NAS score. Conversion of the data sets to the Finnegan score, and applying the same procedure resulted in a 9-element score with similar performance characteristics. CONCLUSION: Shortened scoring instruments were identified with high predictive power for clinical endpoints based on the 19-element full MOTHER NAS score. There were no substantial variation in performance for age, supporting the current practice of utilizing a single scoring tool regardless of post-natal age.