Construction and validation of an instruction manual of nutritional care for severely obese people in the Unified Health System.

Abstract

This article describes the construction and validation of an instruction manual geared toward nutritional care (NC) for people with severe obesity in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). In the production of this instruction manual, a broad literature review was conducted for the identification and discussion of topics to be treated. The content and appearance validity were conducted according to the Delphi technique and to focus groups, respectively, with evaluators who were nutritionists and practitioners, from different regions of Brazil. According to the Delphi technique, the instruction attributes and their content as a whole were properly and sufficiently evaluated according to values obtained for the Content Validity Index (CVI > 0.8). In the focus groups, the saturation of content was reached. Furthermore, discussions considering the reality of SUS were conducted and subsequently incorporated into the instructions in order to adequate the final version of the instructions to SUS professionals' needs. In conclusion, the instruction manual produced to fill the gap regarding nutritional care for people with severe obesity presents an adequate content in terms of both quality and topics of interest (content validation), and is applicable within the reality of SUS nutritionists (appearance validity).