Development of a surgical wound assessment tool to measure healing and risk factors for delayed wound healing in Vietnam: a Delphi process

Abstract

Objective: To identify items and develop a surgical wound assessment tool (SWAT) to measure progress in healing and early detection of risk factors for delayed healing in surgical wounds in patients in Vietnam. Method: The development process included two phases: (i) development of the initial SWAT based on evidence-based guidelines, results of a literature review and consultation with surgeons; and (ii) a Delphi process with wound care nurse experts to refine and provide consensus on a final version of the SWAT. Data collection took place between April–August 2017. Results: In phase one, 22 items were included and were evaluated by ten Vietnamese surgeons, with item-content validity index (I-CVI) scores of 1.00 in 17 out of 22 items. The remaining items had I-CVI ranking of 0.8 to 0.9. The overall scale-content validity index was 0.97. Eight more items were recommended for inclusion, increasing the total to 30 items. In phase two, 21 Vietnamese nurse wound care experts completed all three rounds of the Delphi process. After three rounds, 24 items out of 30 reached full consensus for the final tool. Conclusion: This study was the first step to confirm the content validity of the newly developed SWAT. Further development of the tool including the evaluation of validity and reliability was undertaken to strengthen the tool.