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Reliability and Validity Testing of a Home Health Patient Classification System
Author(s) -
Churness Vivian Hayes,
Kleffel Dorothy,
Onodera Marlene L.,
Jacobson Joan
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
public health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.471
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1525-1446
pISSN - 0737-1209
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1446.1988.tb00714.x
Subject(s) - nursing , medicine , test (biology) , agency (philosophy) , medical record , reliability (semiconductor) , health care , family medicine , validity , psychometrics , clinical psychology , paleontology , philosophy , power (physics) , physics , epistemology , quantum mechanics , biology , radiology , economics , economic growth
Home health agency nurses are caring for greater numbers of acutely ill patients than ever. Because patient requirements are so diverse, it has become difficult to predict the amounts and types of nursing care specific patients must have. To meet the need for a means of quantifying nursing care requirements in a home health setting, a patient‐classification system was developed by the authors. The purpose of the present study was to test the reliability and validity of the system in actual use. Staff nurses in the Visiting Nurse Association of Los Angeles, Inc, completed patient classification forms for 408 home visits. Seventy‐five of these visits were then scored by a second nurse who used patients' medical records as a data source. Agreement between raters ranged from 35 to 100 percent for specific instrument items. When patients were classified into one of five groups, 69 percent of the visits were accurately predicted. Using this information, the instrument was revised and is currently undergoing further field testing in the agency.