Content Validity of the Left Ventricular Assist Device Bathing Assessment.

Many institutions recommend modified bathing techniques for individuals with left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) due to infection risk. Although these techniques may be challenging for patients, there currently is no assessment to evaluate these skills and whether intervention programs have been successful. This article describes the development and content validation of the LVAD Bathing Assessment. The content validity index (CVI) process was used to determine the relevance of assessment items. Modified Kappa indices were calculated to account for the possibility of chance agreement among raters. Eight content validity experts rated each assessment item and provided feedback. The overall assessment and 44 of 47 individual items had excellent content validity (scale-level CVI [S-CVI] = 0.97; item-level CVI [I-CVI] > 0.78). Minor revisions were made based on feedback. Creation of an LVAD bathing assessment may improve care by identifying safety risks that may cause infection. Further studies for construct validation and reliability testing are needed.

National-scale marine bioregions for the Southwest Pacific.

Existing marine bioregions covering the Pacific Ocean are conceptualised at spatial scales that are too broad for national marine spatial planning. Here, we developed the first combined oceanic and coastal marine bioregionalisation at national scales, delineating 262 deep-water and 103 reef-associated bioregions across the southwest Pacific. The deep-water bioregions were informed by thirty biophysical environmental variables. For reef-associated environments, records for 806 taxa at 7369 sites were used to predict the probability of observing taxa based on environmental variables. Both deep-water and reef-associated bioregions were defined with cluster analysis applied to the environmental variables and predicted species observation probabilities, respectively to classify areas with high taxonomic similarity. Local experts further refined the delineation of the bioregions at national scales for four countries. This work provides marine bioregions that enable the design of ecologically representative national systems of marine protected areas within offshore and inshore environments in the Pacific.