Development and validation of antisnake venom knowledge assessment tool (AKAT) for healthcare practitioners

Auwal A Bala; Abubakar I Jatau; Ismaeel Yunusa; Mustapha Mohammed; Al-Kassim H Mohammed; Abubakar M Isa; Wada A Sadiq; Kabiru A Gulma; Inuwa Bello; Sani Malami; Godpower C Michael; Basheer A Z Chedi

doi:10.1016/j.toxcx.2020.100064

Development and validation of antisnake venom knowledge assessment tool (AKAT) for healthcare practitioners

Toxicon X. 2020 Dec 3:8:100064. doi: 10.1016/j.toxcx.2020.100064. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Authors

Auwal A Bala^{1

2}, Abubakar I Jatau³, Ismaeel Yunusa^{4

5}, Mustapha Mohammed^{6

7}, Al-Kassim H Mohammed⁸, Abubakar M Isa⁹, Wada A Sadiq², Kabiru A Gulma¹⁰, Inuwa Bello¹¹, Sani Malami², Godpower C Michael¹², Basheer A Z Chedi^{2

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Federal University Dutse, Nigeria.
² Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.
³ School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia.
⁴ University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, Columbia, South Carolina, USA.
⁵ Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.
⁷ Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Practice, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Kaduna, Nigeria.
⁸ Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria.
⁹ Malaria Consortium, Jigawa State Office, Nigeria.
¹⁰ School of Global Health and Bioethics, Euclid University, Gambia.
¹¹ Jigawa State Hospital Services, Dutse, Nigeria.
¹² Department of Family Medicine, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, Nigeria.
¹³ Venom-Antivenom Research Project (VASP) and Nigeria- Snakebite Research and Intervention Centre (N-SRIC), Nigeria.

Abstract

Antisnake venom (ASV) is the only specific and standard treatment for snakebite envenoming worldwide. The knowledge of antivenom dosage, mode of administration, availability, and logistics is essential to the healthcare practitioners (HCPs) in the management of snakebites. It is vital for the HCPs involved in the handling of ASVs to have its basic knowledge. The ASV contains proteins and can, therefore, easily get denatured if not handled appropriately, leading to poor therapeutic outcome. It is also essential for clinicians to be aware of the tendency of ASV to cause a severe life-threatening hypersensitivity reaction. There is currently no validated tool for assessing the knowledge of ASV among HCPs. Therefore, we developed and validated a tool for evaluating the HCPs knowledge of ASV. The items included in the tool were first generated from a comprehensive literature review. Face validity were conducted by presenting the drafted tool to ten experts on the subject matter. A validation study was conducted among doctors, pharmacists, nurses, pharmacy technicians, and the general public. The objectives of the study were to test the tool for content validity using the content validity index (CVI), construct validity using contrast group approach, difficulty index, readability, and reliability test using the test-retest method. We developed and validated a final tool containing thirty-three items. The tool was valid for face validity and had a scale-level (average) content validity (S-CVI/Ave) of 0.91. The ASV knowledge of pharmacists was higher than that of doctors, pharmacy technicians, nurses, and the general public (p < 0.001), thus, valid for construct validity. The readability of the tool using the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) was determined to be grade level 7. The test-retest analysis showed no significant difference between the mean knowledge scores measured at four weeks interval (p = 0.916), implying excellent reliability. The AKAT has demonstrated good psychometrical properties that would enable its application among a wide range of healthcare practitioners.

Keywords: Antisnake venom; Healthcare practitioners; Knowledge assessment; Tool validation.