Examining a New Scale for Evaluating Taste in Children (TASTY)

Abstract

OBJECTIVES Pediatric medication taste impacts adherence, and current recommendations advocate for direct input from pediatric patients on medication taste during drug development. However, the lack of a widely used, validated measurement tool limits taste assessments. This protocol examines the validity of, and preferences for, a newly created self-report taste rating scale designed with images centered on taste (TASTY), compared with 2 existing hedonic taste scales. METHODS This study was a prospective, single-center, randomized survey of child-parent dyads recruited from pediatric ambulatory care clinics and ancillary service waiting rooms. Parents facilitated the survey by identifying foods that they perceived their child would recall as pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant. Children were asked to rate each of the 3 food items on each of 3 different faces scales presented in random order. Parents and children were also asked which scale they preferred and why. RESULTS Ninety child-parent dyads completed this study (mean child age was 6.7 ± 2.9 years, 58% female). All 3 scales performed comparably with no significant differences (p > 0.05). However, concordance between parental assignment and child rankings was markedly lower in 3-year-olds (r < 0.4) and 4-year-olds (r < 0.6) than for children 5 years and older (r > 0.9). TASTY was preferred by both parents and children when compared with the other scales. CONCLUSIONS This novel hedonic taste scale for pediatric use is equally valid and preferred to comparable faces scales. The TASTY scale may be beneficial in developing standardized methodology for evaluating drug palatability.

Palatability Assessment of Carbocysteine Oral Solution Strawberry Taste Versus Carbocysteine Oral Solution Mint Taste: A Blinded Randomized Study

“…Few comparative studies illustrated the palatability of carbocysteine oral solution with flavor masked technique. From the methodological aspect, most studies ( Anand et al, 2008 ; Salman et al, 2018b ) adopt the scaling methods, and some researchers have developed a novel hedonic taste scale for pediatric use ( Wagner et al, 2020 ). These are mainly based on the Likert scale with some cartoons in order to facilitate children’s understanding.…”

Pharmaceutical Oral Formulation of Methionine as a Pediatric Treatment in Inherited Metabolic Disease

“…After one year of Met suspension use, a questionnaire was given to the parents of 7 children ( Table S2 ). To evaluate the appreciation of taste, the TASTY children facial expression scale ( Figure 1 ) was used by the parents [ 16 ].…”

“… Seven facial children expression presented to estimate taste acceptance: TASTY scale adapted with permission from Ref. [ 16 ]. Copyright year 2020, copyright owner’s name the Pediatric Pharmacy Association (PPA).…”

“…We thank Michael D. Reed and the Pediatric Pharmacy Association (PPA) for the permission to adapt and publish the Tasty Scale from Ref. [ 16 ]. We thank Pauline Marchadour (Pharmacie department, Necker Hospital) for technical assistance.…”

Formulation and stability study of hydroxychloroquine sulfate oral suspensions

“…Faces scales employ a number of illustrations depicting facial expressions based on children's taste experiences, thereby avoiding the need for children to quantify this experiment numerically (Garra et al 2010). To assess the palatability of the HCQ formulations, the new hedonic faces scale TASTY developed specifically for evaluating taste in children was adapted to our study (Wagner et al 2020). The investigator explained that the taster would be asked the question 'how do you estimate the taste of the drug' and encouraged to refer to their preference by pointing to the appropriate face on the specific scale (Figure 1).…”