Development and Validation of the Intravenous Infiltration and Extravasation Risk Assessment Tool (IIERAT) for Pediatric Patients

ABSTRACT

Objective: To develop and validate a new tool viz., Intravenous Infiltration and Extravasation Risk Assessment Tool (IIEART) for assessing risk of fluid extravasation in children. Participants: 120 children (aged 2-18 year) undergoing peripheral intravenous cannulation were recruited from four hospitals of Haryana to determine the IIEART scale’s psychometric properties. Methods: The tool was developed under four phases with Modified Delphi rounds among nine experts. After experts’ confirmation of final draft, the reliability and validity of the tool was ascertained. Results: The final IIERAT with 11 items showed good internal consistency (?=0.81) with inter-rater reliability of (?=0.88). To calculate predictive validity, sensitivity and specificity were assessed for 3 consecutive days from the day of cannulation. At a score >21, the sensitivity was 100% and specificity was 100% with area under curve of 1.0 (95% CI 1.0, 1.0) on second day of cannulation. Conclusion: The IIEART developed was found to be valid and reliable and can be used by healthcare personnel to predict pediatric patients at risk for intravenous infiltration and extravasation.