Vulnerabilidade em saúde de gestantes à transmissão vertical da sífilis: evidência de validade de conteúdo e processo de resposta de um banco de itens.

Abstract

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major public health problem and are one of the five main reasons why people seek health care. Syphilis is an infectious disease that poses a challenge to prenatal care to ensure the prevention of vertical transmission. In this sense, health professionals have difficulty identifying the elements that characterize health vulnerability in pregnant women to vertical transmission of syphilis. The objective of this study is to analyze evidence of content validity and response processes of an item bank to measure vulnerability to vertical transmission of syphilis. This is a psychometric study to construct an item bank for evaluation and analyze its evidence of validity and reliability, based on Pasquali (2013) and DeVellis (2016). The study comprises the conceptualization of the construct based on this, the update of the Scoping Review (JBI, 2020) ̳vulnerability of pregnant women to vertical transmission of syphilis‘ was developed with the aim of building and clarifying the concept of the construct. The 2nd Stage of the study corresponds to the elaboration of the preliminary list of items. Following the analysis and definition of the concept of health vulnerability of pregnant women to vertical transmission of syphilis, the constitutive definitions of the latent trait were elucidated, and then the operational definitions. The 3rd Stage of the study was aimed at the evaluation of the initial list of items by experts, when we sought to identify the evidence of content validity, through the evaluation of 10 expert judges in the thematic area of the study. The calculation of the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) was used to select the DC with a score equal to or greater than 0.8. The 4th Stage consisted of the application of cognitive interviews with the target population, to identify the evidence of validity of the response process. The purpose of this study was to adjust the items according to the performance and responses of the interviewees. The items were evaluated by 6 pregnant women with syphilis undergoing prenatal care. At this stage, the RVC was also used, and items with scores equal to or greater than 1.0 were considered valid. The item bank was also tested by 10 ESF nurses who acted as judges, where the adequacy of each item was assessed. At this stage, the RVC calculation was used, considering items with a score equal to or greater than 0.8 as valid. The study was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú (UVA), through the Brasil platform, and obtained a favorable opinion through the CAAE number: 45222821.6.0000.5053 (ANNEX A). From the subject and social dimensions, 09 subdimensions with 17 subconcepts were highlighted. Next, 30 operational definitions were constructed, 20 of the subject dimension and 10 of the social dimension. A total of 40 items were developed, 28 for the subject dimension and 12 for the social dimension. All items achieved satisfactory RVC in the pertinence and relevance criteria. The item bank composed of 30 operational definitions and 42 items presents evidence of content validity by experts and response process by the target audience, in the evaluated criteria.