Designing an Alarm Fatigue Assessment Questionnaire: Evaluation of the Validity and Reliability of an Instrument

Background: In intensive care units (ICU), there should be some more facilities and equipment such as ventilators, monitors, suc-tionpumps,etc. Thesedevicesareequippedwithanalarmsystemintheirsettings. Sometimes,toomanyalarmscausealarmfatigue among nurses and consequently would jeopardize the safety of patients. Therefore, the current study aimed at designing a tool to assess the alarm fatigue among nurses. Methods: Inthecurrentdevelopmental,analyticstudy,usingreliabledatabases,analarmfatiguequestionnairewasdesignedwith 32 items. The content of the tool was measured by the panel of experts and its reliability was measured by Cronbach’s alpha. Data were analyzed with SPSS software version 21. Results: Theresultsshowedthat9outof 32itemsof thequestionnairehadlowcontentvalidityindexandratio(CVI/CVR)andshould be rejected; the index value of the questionnaire was 0.7 that was acceptable. The results showed that the final questionnaire was reliable ( α = 0.806) with test-retest, which was repeatable. Conclusions: Since the alarm fatigue can jeopardize the patients’ safety, it is required to use a reliable tool for its assessment. According to the obtained results in the current study, the present questionnaire had a relatively appropriate validity.