• S Labeau, D M Vandijck, B Claes, P Van Aken, S I Blot, and executive board of the Flemish Society for Critical Care Nurses.
• Faculty of Healthcare, Ghent University College, Ghent, Belgium.
• Am. J. Crit. Care. 2007 Jul 1;16(4):371-7.

BackgroundNurses' lack of knowledge may be a barrier to adherence to evidence-based guidelines for preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia.ObjectiveTo develop a reliable and valid questionnaire for evaluating critical care nurses' knowledge of evidence-based guidelines for preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia.MethodsTen nursing-related interventions were identified from a review of evidence-based guidelines for preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia. Selected interventions and multiple-choice questions (1 question per intervention) were subjected to face and content validation. Item difficulty, item discrimination, and the quality of the response alternatives or options for answers (possible responses) were evaluated on the test results of 638 critical care nurses.ResultsFace and content validity were achieved for 9 items. Values for item difficulty ranged from 0.1 to 0.9. Values for item discrimination ranged from 0.10 to 0.65. The quality of the response alternatives led to the detection of widespread misconceptions among critical care nurses.ConclusionThe questionnaire is reliable and has face and content validity. Results of surveys with this questionnaire can be used to focus educational programs on preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia.

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