Reliability of indicators of nursing care quality: testing interexaminer agreement and reliability1

OBJECTIVE this study sought to test the interexaminer agreement and reliability of 15 indicators of nursing care quality. METHODS this was a quantitative, methodological, experimental, and applied study conducted at a large, tertiary, public teaching hospital in the state of Paraná. For data analysis, the Kappa (k) statistic was applied to the categorical variables - indicators 1 to 11 and 15 - and the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to the continuous variables - indicators 12, 13, and 14, with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals. The categorical data were analyzed using the Lee software, elaborated by the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Statistics of Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology - Brazil, and the continuous data were assessed using BioEstat 5.0. RESULTS the k-statistic results indicated excellent agreement, which was statistically significant, and the values of the ICC denoted excellent and statistically significant reproducibility/agreement relative to the investigated indicators. CONCLUSION the investigated indicators exhibited excellent reliability and reproducibility, thus showing that it is possible to formulate valid and reliable assessment instruments for the management of nursing care.