Development of a nursing follow-up checklist for adult ECMO-treated discharged patients: a Delphi consensus and...

Develop a nursing follow-up checklist for adult patients discharged after Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) surgery, providing a scientific and effective assessment tool for the continuous care services of surviving adult patients post-ECMO discharge.

The first draft of the nursing follow-up checklist for adult patients discharged after ECMO therapy was developed through literature review, semi-structured interviews, and group discussions. In October 2025, two rounds of Delphi expert consultations were conducted, and modifications and improvements were made based on expert opinions and clinical realities, resulting in the final version of the follow-up checklist after content revision. Using convenience sampling, six nurses and ten adult patients discharged after ECMO therapy from a tertiary Grade A hospital in Wuhan City were selected as participants in November 2025 to preliminarily test the feasibility of the follow-up checklist, further evaluating and refining its content.

The expert response rates for the two rounds of correspondence were 86.67 and 100.00%, respectively. The expert authority coefficients were 0.93 and 0.90, with Kendall's concordance coefficient (W)s of 0.187 (χ² = 209.598) and 0.232 (χ² = 313.055) (p < 0.001). The developed nursing follow-up checklist for adult patients discharged after ECMO therapy includes four primary categories-physiological status, psychological status, living conditions, and social and family support-along with 20 secondary items and 83 tertiary items. Follow-up participants reported that the content of the checklist was comprehensive, and nurses expressed high satisfaction with its use.

The checklist is comprehensive in content, demonstrating good content validity, clinical feasibility, and high acceptability.