Development of an intensive care oral care frequency assessment scale

Oral care and frequency of oral care is important for intensive care patients in order to prevent the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia. However, there are no scales to assess the frequency of oral care specific to intensive care units (ICUs).This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable tool, "Intensive Care Oral Care Frequency Assessment Scale (ICOCFAS)", for assessing the frequency of nurses' oral care in critical ill patients.This was an instrument development study.The validity and reliability of the ICOCFAS, which consists of nine items, were tested using content validity (five expert opinions), construct validity (factor analysis), item analysis, and internal consistency analysis methods. The population of the research consisted of inpatients at the ICU of a hospital in Sakarya, Turkey. The research was conducted with 73 patients in the ICU.Expert opinions on the content validity indicated that the scale was admissible. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient was calculated at 0.800, and the Chi-square value of the Bartlett test was considerably significant (χ2 = 270.539; P < .001). Using a path diagram in confirmatory factor analysis, Chi-square/df ratio values were calculated as 1.49, standardized root mean square residual as 0.077, comparative fit index as 0.97, and root mean square error of approximation as 0.082. Cronbach's alpha was 0.851. The correlations between the items and total scores were 0.455 to 0.835 and were statistically significant (P < .001).The ICOCFAS is an efficient tool with high validity and reliability for assessing oral care frequency in the ICU.The ICOCFAS is a valid and reliable tool for Turkish society for assessing the frequency of oral care of patients in the ICU. It is recommended for various national and international studies with different patients in ICUs.