[Construction of an Instrument of Risk Assessment and Injury Severity for the Diaper Area in Infants: RDIC-lac].

Abstract

Objective: To design an instrument to measure impairment of skin integrity in the diaper area of infants and severity of injury for the prevention and management of irritative diaper dermatitis.

Methodology: Design in 3 phases: 1) comprehensive review and critical appraisal of literature to design the preliminary content of the instrument; 2) critical evaluation of initial proposal by an expert group (nursing and pediatric medicine) with opinion survey and ad hoc questions; 3) content analysis using data tabulation for the modification and final design of the instrument.

Setting: Primary Care Management of Tenerife.

Results: In the 1st phase a proposed instrument is designed: two groups of risk factors (10 modulators risk and 9 high risk); and a severity scale with 5 aspects to assess including 4-5 items each (depth, location, extension, type of injury, signs of infection). The 2nd phase involved 19 professionals. A Tabulation of the data grouped into add or omit factors was used. The 3rd phase ends with a modified version of the instrument: 10 modulating factors, 5 of hig risk and 4 items for each aspect to assess severity.

Discussion-conclusions: The scarce bibliography found and absence of similar tools explain the design. The next phase will be the validation of RDIC-lac instrument.

Clinical relevance: Susceptibility to prevent skin lesions in the diaper area in the pediatric age.