Construction and validation of the content of an instrument aimed at guiding the filling in of notification forms and epidemiological investigation of arboviruses
Arbovirus Infections; Disease Notification; Health Education; Technological Development; Validation Study.
The concomitant circulation of dengue, chikungunya and zika viruses in Brazil has become a public health problem for the country. Arboviruses are considered notifiable diseases, therefore, every suspected or confirmed case must be notified to the Epidemiological Surveillance Service, so that strategies are adopted to reduce viral
proliferation. However, it was observed that there are flaws in filling out the notification forms, thus, the incompleteness of this information reflects an underestimation of the real number of cases that occurred in epidemics, as well as making it impossible to identify the real health situation in which find the population. Thus, the objective is to build and validate the content of an instrument aimed at guiding the correct completion of the notification forms and epidemiological investigation of arboviruses. This is a methodological research composed of two steps. The first consisted of a document review, carried out through the analysis of Ministry of Health manuals and technical notes on guidelines for completing the notification forms. In the second stage, the instrument was constructed and validated based on the material identified in the previous stage and on the arbovirus notification and epidemiological investigation form. The instrument's items were constructed and evaluated based on Pasquali's theoretical framework and the calculation of the Content Validity Coefficient was performed using the Hernandez-Nieto framework. The validation steps were carried out with expert judges, using the Delphi technique. The Kappa test was applied to assess the judges' degree of agreement on the analyzed items. Data were tabulated in Microsoft Excel 365 and analyzed in SPSS statistical software, version 25.0. Ethical precepts were followed in accordance with Resolution No. 466, of December 12, 2012, of the National Health Council. The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, through opinion no 5.463.378 and Certificate of Ethical Appreciation Presentation 57846222.0.0000.5537. The validation process was carried out in two Delphi rounds, 13 judges participated in the first and 9 in the second. The judges were mostly female (61.54%), had an average age of 36 years, an average time of training of 13 years and an average time of experience in arboviruses of 8 years. The items were evaluated according to the criteria of clarity of language, practical pertinence and theoretical relevance, these were changed, deleted and included based on the analyzes and pertinent suggestions of the judges. The final version of the instrument had 50 items. They were obtained in Delphi 1 Content Validity Coefficient 0.92 and Kappa 1.00; in Delphi 2, the Content Validity Coefficient was 1.00 and Kappa 1.00, which indicates almost perfect agreement between the evaluators. It is concluded that the content of the constructed instrument was validated according to the evaluated dimensions. Thus, it has evidence that it represents a technology that can be used by health professionals, who act directly in filling out arboviruses notification forms, which can promote a better quality of this information.