Cargando…

Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Proper specimen collection is the most important step to ensure accurate testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other infectious diseases. Assessment of healthcare workers’ upper respiratory tract specimen collection skills is needed to ensure samples of high-quality clinical specim...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Todsen, Tobias, Bohr, Anne, Hovgaard, Lisette Hvid, Eið, Rebekka Consuelo, Benfield, Thomas, Svendsen, Morten B. S., Kirkby, Nikolai, Konge, Lars, von Buchwald, Christian, Melchiors, Jacob, Tolsgaard, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8622793/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34829333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11111987
_version_ 1784605777249435648
author Todsen, Tobias
Bohr, Anne
Hovgaard, Lisette Hvid
Eið, Rebekka Consuelo
Benfield, Thomas
Svendsen, Morten B. S.
Kirkby, Nikolai
Konge, Lars
von Buchwald, Christian
Melchiors, Jacob
Tolsgaard, Martin
author_facet Todsen, Tobias
Bohr, Anne
Hovgaard, Lisette Hvid
Eið, Rebekka Consuelo
Benfield, Thomas
Svendsen, Morten B. S.
Kirkby, Nikolai
Konge, Lars
von Buchwald, Christian
Melchiors, Jacob
Tolsgaard, Martin
author_sort Todsen, Tobias
collection PubMed
description Proper specimen collection is the most important step to ensure accurate testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other infectious diseases. Assessment of healthcare workers’ upper respiratory tract specimen collection skills is needed to ensure samples of high-quality clinical specimens for COVID-19 testing. This study explored the validity evidence for a theoretical MCQ-test and checklists developed for nasopharyngeal (NPS) and oropharyngeal (OPS) specimen collection skills assessment. We found good inter-item reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.76) for the items of the MCQ-test and high inter-rater reliability using the checklist for the assessment of OPS and NPS skills on 0.86 and 0.87, respectively. The MCQ scores were significantly different between experts (mean 98%) and novices (mean 66%), p < 0.001, and a pass/fail score of 91% was established. We found a significant discrimination between checklist scores of experts (mean 95% score for OPS and 89% for NPS) and novices (mean 50% score for OPS and 36% for NPS), p < 0.001, and a pass/fail score was established of 76% for OPS and 61% for NPS. Further, the results also demonstrated that a group of non-healthcare educated workers can perform upper respiratory tract specimen collection comparably to experts after a short and focused simulation-based training session. This study, therefore, provides validity evidence for the use of a theoretical and practical test for upper respiratory specimens’ collection skills that can be used for competency-based training of the workers in the COVID-19 test centers.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8622793
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86227932021-11-27 Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic Todsen, Tobias Bohr, Anne Hovgaard, Lisette Hvid Eið, Rebekka Consuelo Benfield, Thomas Svendsen, Morten B. S. Kirkby, Nikolai Konge, Lars von Buchwald, Christian Melchiors, Jacob Tolsgaard, Martin Diagnostics (Basel) Article Proper specimen collection is the most important step to ensure accurate testing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other infectious diseases. Assessment of healthcare workers’ upper respiratory tract specimen collection skills is needed to ensure samples of high-quality clinical specimens for COVID-19 testing. This study explored the validity evidence for a theoretical MCQ-test and checklists developed for nasopharyngeal (NPS) and oropharyngeal (OPS) specimen collection skills assessment. We found good inter-item reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.76) for the items of the MCQ-test and high inter-rater reliability using the checklist for the assessment of OPS and NPS skills on 0.86 and 0.87, respectively. The MCQ scores were significantly different between experts (mean 98%) and novices (mean 66%), p < 0.001, and a pass/fail score of 91% was established. We found a significant discrimination between checklist scores of experts (mean 95% score for OPS and 89% for NPS) and novices (mean 50% score for OPS and 36% for NPS), p < 0.001, and a pass/fail score was established of 76% for OPS and 61% for NPS. Further, the results also demonstrated that a group of non-healthcare educated workers can perform upper respiratory tract specimen collection comparably to experts after a short and focused simulation-based training session. This study, therefore, provides validity evidence for the use of a theoretical and practical test for upper respiratory specimens’ collection skills that can be used for competency-based training of the workers in the COVID-19 test centers. MDPI 2021-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8622793/ /pubmed/34829333 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11111987 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Todsen, Tobias
Bohr, Anne
Hovgaard, Lisette Hvid
Eið, Rebekka Consuelo
Benfield, Thomas
Svendsen, Morten B. S.
Kirkby, Nikolai
Konge, Lars
von Buchwald, Christian
Melchiors, Jacob
Tolsgaard, Martin
Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Valid and Reliable Assessment of Upper Respiratory Tract Specimen Collection Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort valid and reliable assessment of upper respiratory tract specimen collection skills during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8622793/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34829333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11111987
work_keys_str_mv AT todsentobias validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT bohranne validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT hovgaardlisettehvid validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT eiðrebekkaconsuelo validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT benfieldthomas validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT svendsenmortenbs validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT kirkbynikolai validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT kongelars validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT vonbuchwaldchristian validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT melchiorsjacob validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic
AT tolsgaardmartin validandreliableassessmentofupperrespiratorytractspecimencollectionskillsduringthecovid19pandemic