Content Validity Testing of a Novel Cognitive Screen, the Gaylord Occupational Therapy Cognitive (GOT–Cog), to Improve Inpatient Occupational Therapy Treatment Planning
Henry C. Hrdlicka, Emily Meise, John Corbett, Amanda Meyer, Pete Grevelding- Occupational Therapy
Abstract
Importance: No single cognitive screen adequately captures all cognitive domains that are important for inpatient occupational therapy treatment planning.
Objective: To quantify the content validity of a novel 22-item cognitive screen, the Gaylord Occupational Therapy Cognitive (GOT–Cog) screen, developed to better inform inpatient occupational therapy treatment planning.
Design: Delphi-style expert panel review.
Setting: Long-term acute care hospital.
Participants: The first panel was attended by four occupational therapists, two speech-language pathologists, one physician assistant, and two neuropsychologists; the second, by four occupational therapists, one speech-language pathologist, and one physician assistant.
Intervention: Each Delphi panel discussed the relevance, essentiality, and clarity of each item. After each discussion, panelists completed a content validity survey to summarize their evaluation of each item.
Outcomes and Measures: On the basis of panelists’ survey responses, item- and scale-level relevance, essentiality, and clarity were quantified by calculating the respective content validity index (CVI), content validity ratio (CVR), and content clarity index (CCI). Universal agreement (UA) and κ statistics were also calculated, as appropriate.
Results: Upon presenting the initial 23-item instrument covering 10 cognitive domains to the first Delphi panel, several questions were added, removed, or rewritten, resulting in a 22-item instrument representing nine domains. After the second panel, several questions were again rewritten, and the domains reorganized. All scale-level metrics improved, including CVI (from 0.87 to 1.0), UA (0.52 to 1.0), CVR (0.43 to 0.94), and CCI (2.26 to 2.92).
Conclusions and Relevance: GOT–Cog displays overall excellent content validity and can proceed to construct validity testing.
Plain-Language Summary: By reporting on the content validity of the Gaylord Occupational Therapy Cognitive screen, this brief report begins the necessary process of evaluating the measure’s overall validity and reliability.