Development of a scale to measure catheter associated urinary tract infection prevention knowledge

Aim: One important intervention to decrease catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is improving healthcare professionals' knowledge. Appropriate knowledge measurement is therefore essential to evaluate the impact of such interventions. We aim to report a series of projects developing a tool to measure CAUTI prevention knowledge among healthcare professionals.

Methods: Deductive and inductive approaches to instrument development based on the catheter lifecycle model and the COSMIN checklist. We conducted systematic literature and clinical guidelines reviews, followed by a two-round Delphi survey with 76 participants from 14 countries and an experts’ workshop to develop more knowledge items and validate the existing ones. The collaboratively developed pool of questions was then evaluated based on responses from 259 participants from 13 countries in an online study.

Results: The systematic review established that the existing tools have insufficient psychometric quality, making them unfit for CAUTI prevention knowledge measurement. The review led to an extension of the catheter lifecycle model and a large pool of questions aimed at assessing this knowledge. The psychometric study resulted in an optimised set of questions using classic and modern test theory criteria to evaluate CAUTI prevention knowledge.

Conclusion: The study contributes to the infection prevention and control literature by producing a more valid and reliable CAUTI prevention knowledge measurement scale that meets the appropriate psychometric standards. While further evaluation in research and clinical applications is needed, this is currently the most valid and reliable knowledge measurement tool. This will ensure that future CAUTI prevention knowledge interventions to improve patient care quality and reduce healthcare costs are more effective.