Objective: To evaluate content validity (CV) and interrater reliability (IRR) of an acuity scoring tool developed for the couplet care/postpartum/nursery patient population and to determine if there was agreement between supervisor or director scoring and staff scoring.
Design: A scoring tool to assess the acuity of the couplet care/postpartum/nursery patients was developed.
Setting: Two hospitals: one Level 2 hospital, one Level 3 hospital. Unit-based patient care councils participated in the development, and all couplet care nurses participated in scoring patients for testing.
Measurements: The final tool was evaluated for CV and IRR using expert review, universal agreement scores, and discriminant content validation.
Results: Regarding CV for the Couplet Care Acuity Scoring Tool, the average of the number of experts in agreement divided by the total number of experts across all items was 1.00. Regarding IRR, the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.85, indicating that the tool is valid and reliable for the study sample.
Conclusion: The tool was reliable and valid in this study. Future testing is needed with larger samples and different health care facilities.
Keywords: acuity; couplet care; maternal–newborn dyad; nurse staffing; nursing; obstetric nursing; patient acuity; pregnancy outcomes; scoring tool.
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