A gold standard of skills required for nurse-administered propofol sedation (NAPS) for gastroenterological endoscopic procedures has been proposed but not established.
Due to the potentially hazardous nature of NAPS, an assessment tool is needed to objectively judge the adequacy of training and for future certification.
Dr Jeppe Thue Jensen and colleagues from Denmark developed an assessment tool for measuring competency in propofol sedation, and explored the reliability and validity of the tool.
The nurse-administered propofol assessment tool (NAPSAT) was developed in a Delphi-like fashion.
The research team achieved consensus on 17 items.
|Experienced nurses scored higher than the novices|
|Scandanavian Journal of Gastroenterology|
The team gathered validity evidence in a case-control study in a full-scale simulation setting.
The research team filmed 6 experienced nurses, and 6 novice nurses in 2 scenarios for assessment according to the assessment tool by 3 content expert raters.
A total of 72 NAPSAT assessment forms were analyzed.
The research team found that the experienced nurses scored higher than the novices.
The team noted that the provided pass/borderline/fail assessment showed significant differences, with the novices being more likely to fail and the experienced more likely to pass.
Dr Jensen's team concludes, "Assessing sedation skills in a simulator is possible."
"Video assessment requires expert knowledge of the procedure and the rating matrix."
"Overall, NAPSAT showed fair inter-rater reliability and good construct validity."
"This makes NAPSAT fit for formative assessment and proficiency feedback, however, high stakes and summative assessment cannot be advised."