Knowledge about precautions in Primary Health Care: tool validation.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Infection Control
• Primary Health Care

Background:

• Standard and specific precautions are crucial for infection prevention in healthcare.
• Assessing nursing professionals' knowledge and behavior is essential for effective implementation of these precautions.
• A validated tool is needed to accurately measure competency in this area within Primary Health Care settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive tool for evaluating nursing professionals' knowledge and behavior related to standard and specific precautions.
• To ensure the tool is relevant, clear, and pertinent for use in Primary Health Care.

Main Methods:

• Methodological study involving the elaboration and validation of a knowledge and behavior assessment tool.
• Expert review by thirteen judges using a 4-point Likert scale.
• Content Validity Index (CVI) was used to establish tool validity, with a target CVI of ≥ 0.80.

Main Results:

• The final tool comprises 47 dichotomous questions for knowledge assessment and 12 multiple-choice questions for behavior assessment.
• During validation, one item was removed, one was reformulated, and eleven required writing changes.
• The tool demonstrated overall relevance, comprehensiveness, and representativeness for the investigated topic.

Conclusions:

• The developed tool for assessing nursing professionals' knowledge and behavior regarding standard and specific precautions in Primary Health Care has been successfully validated.
• The validated tool is now available for implementation in Primary Health Care settings to improve infection control practices.