Acuity Tools for the Antepartum and Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Management
• Patient Acuity Assessment

Background:

• Nurse staffing decisions require accurate patient acuity tools.
• Existing tools may not adequately address the unique needs of antepartum and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) populations.
• Development of specialized tools is necessary for equitable nurse assignments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the content validity and interrater reliability of newly developed acuity tools.
• To assess the suitability of these tools for antepartum and NICU patient populations.
• To ensure accurate patient acuity assessment for nurse staffing.

Main Methods:

• Antepartum and NICU acuity tools were iteratively developed with staff nurses and leaders.
• Content validity was established using the Content Validity Index with expert panels.
• Interrater reliability was assessed using Intraclass Correlation (ICC).

Main Results:

• Antepartum Acuity Tool achieved a S-CVI/Ave of 0.87 for content validity.
• NICU Acuity Tool achieved a S-CVI/Ave of 0.98 for content validity.
• Interrater reliability was high, with ICC = 0.88 for the Antepartum tool and ICC = 0.95 for the NICU tool.

Conclusions:

• The developed acuity tools possess strong content validity and interrater reliability.
• These validated tools are appropriate for use in antepartum and NICU settings.
• The tools can effectively determine patient acuity and promote appropriate nurse-to-patient assignments.