Anesthesia for Patients With the Centrifugal-Flow Left Ventricular Assist Devices: A Content Validity Assessment

Safely anesthetizing patients with left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) can be intimidating, particularly for novice anesthesia providers. Given the variety of complex issues anesthesia providers may encounter with patients, it would be impractical to expect expertise in every population. To combat the inevitable loss of knowledge, education experts recommend active learning techniques, including test-enhanced learning, active recall, and spaced repetition. To that end, this research team created an LVAD Assessment for Anesthesia, or LAmA tool, to be evaluated for content validity by eight experts. The LAmA tool and content validity assessment were distributed to two anesthesiologists and four nurse anesthetists in the cardiothoracic anesthesia department at a hospital in Northeast Ohio, as well as to two outside nursing research experts. Results were analyzed by the research team and the content validity index (CVI) was determined. A CVI of at least 0.875 was required for the tool to be valid, and final scores in the categories of relevance, clarity, and importance were all ≥ 0.9. The data from the validated tool were used to create a pocket reference on LVAD anesthetic management. Both educational assessments and pocket references have the potential to positively impact knowledge retention and patient outcomes, making them excellent clinical resources.