Psychometric testing of a checklist for procedural training of peripheral intravenous insertion

BACKGROUND: Nurses, medical technologists, nuclear medicine technologists, pre-hospital providers, and medical students are a few groups of healthcare learners asked to learn intravenous (IV) cannulation in their training (J Surg Educ. 69:536–43, 2012). Despite the fact that IV cannulation has been taught to several health professions, it is difficult to find a psychometrically validated checklist to guide teaching this skill in the simulated procedural training (Pediatrics 124: 610-9, 2009, J Assoc Vasc Access 21: 196-204, 2016). In the absence of a pragmatic, valid checklist for the initial teaching of peripheral IV skills in the simulation procedural skills lab, this investigation sought to describe the process and create a psychometrically valid checklist. METHODS: Expert raters used Lawshe’s method for identifying valid items from the universe of items for IV insertion. Gwet’s AC(2) and generalizability (G) theory was used assess inter-rater reliability. RESULTS: The literature and in-house IV checklists were examined for steps to inserting a peripheral IV, and the steps were compiled into a survey and sent to experts who rated each item. Of the 37 potential steps, 16 steps were identified as being psychometrically valid. The checklist content validity index was .82. Inter-rater reliability was .94 (95% CI .91–.98). Good inter-rater reliability was confirmed using generalizability theory. CONCLUSIONS: This study created and provided evidence of content validity and reliability for this checklist using Lawshe’s methodology. As such, this method of evaluating a checklist for validity and reliability evidence can be followed for other healthcare checklists. This checklist can be used for teaching IV placement in healthcare students in the simulation procedural training lab. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s41077-019-0092-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.