Mobile persuasive technology for the teaching and learning in surgical safety: Content validation

Patient safety is a fundamental component of high-quality delivery of health care. However, despite scientific advances, surgical patients continue to face risks. Among the most common complications in surgery are operations on the wrong patient, performance of the wrong procedure or operation on the wrong surgical site, lack of adequate or required equipment, failure to prevent blood loss, and surgical items left inside patients. In this context, the planning and development of innovative educational strategies is important for prevention of adverse events and the improvement of surgical patient safety culture.

To describe the process of validating the content of mobile technology for education about surgical safety.

Content validation using the Delphi technique was carried out from December 2015 to January 2016 at a Federal University in South Brazil. Content development and animations were produced by the authors from a verification list for safety surgery and a safety surgery protocol. Twelve judges assessed five variables (Content, Language, Illustration, Layout and Motivation), for consensus on content validation. They evaluated quality of each item, using a rating scale consisting of five levels (1 to 5).

Two assessment rounds were done, with a mean content validity index (CVI) of 0.95 and 1.0 and a kappa index of >0.83 and >0.92, respectively. The judges provided positive comments about each phase of the study, most of comments highlights were: choice of very relevant subject matter, excellent quality of the material and the motivation that the material can provide to the target audience.

The study validated the content of learning technology by general consensus of judges with a high level of concordance among evaluated items. The application was considered adequate for educating students and health professionals about surgical safety.