Development and psychometric testing of the 5Senses screening tool for long-term care: a study protocol

As adults age, their senses tend to decline and a large portion of those most affected by sensory decline reside in long-term care. At present, the creation of a sense-sensitive environment in long-term care is a difficult task as there is minimal evidence or tools available to guide this process. The 5Senses screening tool was developed to measure the sense-sensitivity of a particular environment, with a focus on long-term care. The purpose of this paper is to describe a study protocol to assess the psychometric properties of the newly developed 5Senses screening tool.

We will conduct a psychometric evaluation of the 5Senses screening tool in long-term care based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing Framework. In phase I, we will seek input from international content experts (n=20) to assess the content validity of all sections of the tool. In phase II, we will invite auditors (n=3-9), residents (n=3-9) and staff (n=3-9) to partake in think-aloud sessions to assess response process validity. In phase III, we will conduct field testing of the revised 5Senses screening tool with auditors (n=100), residents (n=100) and staff (n=100) to evaluate additional measures including acceptability, inter-rater reliability, internal structure validity and internal consistency reliability, where possible.

Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board. Findings will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed manuscript, through a dedicated website, through presentations in long-term care communities and through presentations at research conferences.