1Department of Nursing, Hallym University, Korea. 2Department of Nursing, ShinHeung College, Korea. 3Arizona State University, USA. 4Department of Statistics, Hallym University, Korea. sysim@hallym.ac.kr
Abstract
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a tool to assess the severity of illness in high risk newborns.
METHOD: The research design was a methodological study. The tool was developed in 4 stages: first, preliminary items were developed based on a questionnaire about the severity of illness index that was given to 8 health professionals in Neonatal Intensity Care Units (NICU) second, a panel of specialists reduced the preliminary items using 3 validity tests; third, final items were selected from the results of a pre-test. Finally, from July 2005 to May 2006, reliability and validity were tested with a sample of 160 high risk newborns admitted to the NICU.
RESULTS: The final tool to identify the severity of illness index in high risk newborns consisted 39 items and Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was .922. Using factor analysis, 4 factors were extracted and these factors explained 54.451% of the total variance.
CONCLUSION: The instrument for assessing the severity of illness in high risk newborns developed in this study was identified as a tool with a high degree of reliability and validity. In this sense, this tool can be effectively utilized for assessing and implementing care for high risk newborns.
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