J Korean Acad Child Health Nurs.  2007 Apr;13(2):136-146.

Development of a Tool to Identify Severity of Illness Index in High Risk Newborns

• Kim SJ
• Moon SY
• Kim SH
• Sim S

Abstract

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a tool to assess the severity of illness in high risk newborns. METHOD: The research design was a methodological study. The tool was developed in 4 stages: first, preliminary items were developed based on a questionnaire about the severity of illness index that was given to 8 health professionals in Neonatal Intensity Care Units (NICU) second, a panel of specialists reduced the preliminary items using 3 validity tests; third, final items were selected from the results of a pre-test. Finally, from July 2005 to May 2006, reliability and validity were tested with a sample of 160 high risk newborns admitted to the NICU.
RESULTS
The final tool to identify the severity of illness index in high risk newborns consisted 39 items and Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency was .922. Using factor analysis, 4 factors were extracted and these factors explained 54.451% of the total variance.
CONCLUSION
The instrument for assessing the severity of illness in high risk newborns developed in this study was identified as a tool with a high degree of reliability and validity. In this sense, this tool can be effectively utilized for assessing and implementing care for high risk newborns.

Keyword

High risk; Newborn; Severity of illness index

MeSH Terms

Health Occupations
Humans
Infant, Newborn*
Methods
Reproducibility of Results
Research Design
Severity of Illness Index*
Specialization
Child Health