Peer-reviewed article
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A CHECKLIST FOR THE SAFETY OF HOSPITALIZED CHILDREN
Aline Verônica de Oliveira Gomes, Maria Aparecida de Luca Nascimento ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001Researchers in Brazil developed and validated a checklist tool to improve safety for children in hospital wards. The checklist contains 23 items organized into 6 categories and was tested for quality using expert review. The final tool achieved high validation scores, indicating it is ready for use in pediatric hospital units to help staff follow safety practices.
Key points
- The checklist contains 6 categories and 23 check items for pediatric hospital safety
- Content validity index of 0.98 was achieved after three rounds of expert review
- 15 experts participated in the first round and 14 in subsequent rounds using the Delphi technique
- Validation covered content, objectives, structure and presentation of the checklist
- The tool is designed for implementation in any pediatric hospitalization unit
Limitations
This is a tool development and validation study, not an evaluation of whether using the checklist actually improves child safety outcomes or reduces adverse events in hospitals. The document does not report data on whether hospitals that use this checklist have better safety results than those that do not.
Abstract
ABSTRACT Objective: to develop and validate a checklist of safety actions for hospitalized children. Method: a methodological research study carried out from March 2017 to March 2020 in two phases: 1) Identification of the themes and elaboration of the checklist through the literature review; 2) Content validation with expert judges by means of the Delphi technique, applying the Content Validity Index (CVI), accepting values >0.8 for the CVI per item and >0.9 for the checklist. The data collection instrument was organized using an ordinal progressive valuation scale, of the Likert type. The content validation stage was performed in three rounds using a Google Forms® electronic form. Fifteen experts participated in the survey in the first round and 14 in the second and third rounds. The statistical analysis of the data was performed with the aid of Google Forms® and of the Excel® software, and the results were presented descriptively and in a table. Results: the final version of the checklist consisted of 6 categories and 23 check items, validated with a Content Validity Index of 0.98. The checklist was also validated in relation to the objectives (0.95) and to the structure and presentation (0.98). Conclusion: validation of the content, objectives, structure and presentation of the checklist allows this tool to be implemented in any pediatric hospitalization unit, contributing to the care practice aimed at the safety of hospitalized children.