Inter-rater Reliability Testing of the Safety Protocol for Thirst Management
Purpose:
Thirst is one of the most common and yet undertreated symptoms in the postoperative period, mainly because of the lack of safety criteria to support indication for thirst management strategies. A Safety Protocol for Thirst Management was developed and validated, and the objective of this article was to evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the protocol.
Design:
This is a methodological and applied study carried out in a teaching hospital in Brazil.
Methods:
Safety criteria selected were the assessment of level of consciousness, presence of coughing and swallowing, and absence of nausea and vomiting.
Findings:
Agreement between evaluators was almost perfect (Bachelors of Science in Nursing-Kappa of 0.968; nursing technicians-Kappa of 0.867).
Conclusions:
The protocol is presented as a viable and useful tool to evaluate safety criteria that allow administration of strategies to mitigate thirst of patients in the postoperative period.
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