[Design and preliminary validation of a tool for nursing assessment and classification for pediatric patients in primary health care emergency. "VEUPAP"].

OBJECTIVE: Design a tool for nursing assessment and classification for pediatric patients in primary care emergency. DESIGN: Comprehensive literature review of systems of evaluation and classification of urgent patients, work in groups of experts, creation of the instrument and test its validity, reliability and ease of use in normal operation conditions of service. LOCATION: Pediatric Emergency Department Dr. Jaime Chaves. Tenerife. Canary Islands. PARTICIPANTS: Nine nurses and nine pediatricians with training and experience in emergency pediatric care. The validity and reliability tests are performed on a sample of 200 pediatric patients who came calling attention to the emergency service alter request informed consent. INTERVENTIONS: Training sessions, motivational and expert group consensus. Nurses apply the classification tool to test at patient entry and level of classification given by the pediatrician at discharge. RESULTS: Final version of the instrument with the fields of assessment and related documents. Validity tests show a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 94% and a concordance between nurse and pediatric of 83% and reliability agreement among nurses of 76% (p < 0.001 in all cases). CONCLUSIONS: The instrument, called VEUPAP (Nurse Pediatric Emergency Valuation in Primary Care), is valid, reliable, simple and useful for application in primary care.