Construction of a nursing care instrument for patients with central venous catheters

Objective: to build a nursing care instrument for patients with short-term central venous catheters in an Intensive Care Unit. Methods: a multi-method study in three stages: structuring of the instrument; pre-testing of the instrument; agreement analyses among nurses and final composition of the instrument. Results: the instrument, in its first version, presented three domains related to the moment of insertion (five items), maintenance (15 items) and catheter removal (ten items). Most of the 30 items were assessed as relevant (23/77%) and presented a satisfactory Content Validity Index (28/93%). Ten items were reformulated, 32 new items were included, and three items were deleted. Conclusion: the instrument was constructed, which presented response validity for the care of nurses to patients with central venous catheters in Intensive Care Units, consisting of three domains and 59 items evaluated by nurses and considered appropriate for the moments of insertion, maintenance and removal of the catheter.