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Healthcare clinicians attending a national wound conference and expert wound nurses associated with a university School of Nursing and Health Sciences, as well as with a regional wound, ostomy, continence (WOC) nurses group, were invited to participate, for a total of 190 invitees.

  Setting and procedures. Data collection occurred in a variety of settings, but the collection process was the same. Data were collected in a special session at a major international meeting focused on wound care, at a meeting for regional WOC nurses, and at both campuses of a university located in an urban area but with a suburban satellite campus. Survey and testing processes were preceded by a 5- to 10-minute explanation and brief developmental history of the algorithms, after which prospective participants were asked to sign the informed consent documents. Participants kept a copy of the form. After collecting the consent forms, the algorithms and questionnaire were distributed. Participants were not given a time limit for completion. Most participants completed the questionnaire in approximately 60 minutes, and all materials were returned at the end of the session.

  Instrumentation. A professionally produced color copy of the algorithms (Draft 6)¹⁰ was given to each participant along with a paper-pencil data collection instrument. The survey consisted of four parts: 1) demographic data form, 2) a definitions section asking volunteers to describe in their own words the terms acute wound, chronic wound, and primary, secondary, tertiary intention healing, 3) the content validation questionnaire, and 4) open-ended questions asking for overall comments about the NPWT algorithms and the research process.

  The demographic data section comprised 18 questions regarding attributes (age, gender), highest level of education, years of clinical experience, practice setting, types of wounds commonly cared for, and types of wounds cared for using NPWT. The content validation questionnaire was basically the same as that used for the pilot content validation study.⁹ The only difference was that several general patient assessment questions were not included, reducing the total number of steps/statements from 51 to 34. Participants’ opinion about the components contained in the three algorithms was assessed by having participants rate each statement on a 4-point Likert-type rating scale as follows: 1 = not relevant/appropriate; 2 = unable to assess relevance without revision; 3 = relevant but needs minor alteration; and 4 = very relevant and appropriate. Each of the 34 statements also provided an opportunity for comments regarding omissions, suggestions for improvement, presenting an alternative, and/or citing literature references to support their comments. The final page allowed for written comments about the overall content and process of the study and asked for suggestions for improvement (with references if possible) for the NPWT algorithms.

  Data collection/analysis. All variables were entered into an Excel version 2003 spreadsheet (Microsoft Corporation, Seattle, WA) and uploaded into SPSS version 16.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL) for analysis. Summary statistics were calculated for demographics. Write-in demographics (eg, wound type) were tabulated. Mean scores, modal scores, and CVI were derived.