[Patient classification system in psychiatric nursing: clinical validation].

The scarcity of publications about personnel dimensioning in psychiatric nursing motivated the development of an Instrument to Classify the Level of Dependence in Psychiatric Nursing, the initial stage for the establishment of the ideal number of professionals in the nursing crew of the specialty. The purpose of this study was to look for the clinical validation through reliability and construct validity tests, as well as to verify its applicability in the management practice of nurses. Two samples were used, of which n = 40 pairs of instruments filled in Stage 1 of data collection and n = 100 instruments filled in Stage 3 of the study, with different statistical criteria being applied, among them the Kappa coefficient and the Spearman correlation. The Instrument to Classify the Level of Dependence in Psychiatric Nursing was considered reliable, with good indicators of agreement, and the construct was validated, determining the degree of dependence of mental disorder patients.