Development and psychometric testing of ventilator bundle questionnaire and observation schedule

Background There is a current lack of valid and reliable instruments that can be used to examine critical care nurses’ knowledge and skills in adhering to ventilator bundles. The aim of this study was to develop and psychometrically test a ventilator bundle questionnaire (VBQ) and ventilator bundle observation schedule (VBOS). Methods The VBQ and VBOS consisted of a list of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic nurse-led interventions taken from the literature and supported by various levels of evidence. After content validation, stability and equivalence reliabilities of the VBOS were determined in a randomly selected sample of critical care nurses from a single academic center in Finland. Results The final VBQ contained 49 multiple-choice questions, and the VBOS had 86 dichotomous items, whose overall content validity ranged from 0.99 to 1.0. The overall intraclass correlation coefficient of the VBOS ranged from 0.93 to 1.0. Conclusions The VBQ and VBOS have acceptable psychometric properties and could be used to objectively assess whether evidence-based guidelines regarding ventilator bundles are being used in clinical practice. Further testing with diverse samples is needed to strengthen the validity and reliability of these instruments.