Develop and validate postoperative nursing handover checklist for patients undergone general surgery in a teaching hospital of Navi Mumbai

Abstract

Objectives: To develop and to validate the content and construct of postoperative nursing handover checklist for patients undergone general surgery.

Methods: Descriptive evaluative approach with quantitative research design-by using Delphi technique. Data collection was done in three rounds. In round, one open-ended questionnaire and in round two and three analysis checklist was prepared

Result: Analysis of opinion for significant difference in inclusion by using Wilcoxon signed rank test showed there was no significant difference in the opinion of experts in round two and three. Agreement for ranking of items was done by Kendall's tau-b (τb) correlation coefficient, indicates high correlation among experts for ranking of items between rounds two and three. The tool was validated by using content validity index, the content validity of tool is 0.909 which depicted, that the overall tool is highly valid. Content validity was measured by calculating item content validity of all items. Only 16.3% I-CVI was less than 0.78 and it was removed from the checklist. The final draft of the postoperative nursing handover checklist was pilot tested and the reliability was estimated by inter-rater reliability approach and the reliability of the tool was 0.9917, which showed that the tool is highly reliable.

Major conclusion: Surgical complications are a major cause of morbidity and mortality, but these complications are avoidable by the implementation of valid and reliable postoperative nursing handover in clinical settings which would enhance the surgical outcome and patient safety.