Validation of an instrument for investigating knowledge on the initial assistance to burns victims

Abstract

This study featured a methodological quantitative approach and its objective was to validate an instrument on the initial assistance given to burns victims, on medical and nursing knowledge, using the theoretical stage of Pasquali's model. The data were collected in June - August 2008, in two parts: analysis of face validity and content validity by 18 judges; and analysis of internal consistency, undertaken through Item Response Theory, by 42 doctors and nurses from a teaching hospital in the North-West region of the Brazilian state of Paraná. Following the judges' analysis, 35 questions regarding general, medical and nursing knowledge showed agreement above 80% for the concepts. Through the internal consistency analysis applied to the general knowledge questions, three were discarded due to not being correlated with the construct. The remaining seven questions (70%) presented low discrimination of the respondents, varying levels of difficulty, and similar probabilities of correct random guesses. The final instrument contains 32 questions and is available for use.