Development and Validation of the Intravenous Infiltration and Extravasation Risk Assessment Tool (IIERAT) for Pediatric Patients

Objective To develop and validate a new tool viz., Intravenous Infiltration and Extravasation Risk Assessment Tool (IIEART) for assessing risk of fluid extravasation in children. Participants 120 children (aged 2-18 year) undergoing peripheral intravenous cannulation were recruited from four hospitals of Haryana to determine the IIEART scale's psychometric properties. Methods The tool was developed under four phases with Modified Delphi rounds among nine experts. After experts' confirmation of final draft, the reliability and validity of the tool was ascertained. Results The final IIERAT with 11 items showed good internal consistency (alpha=0.81) with inter-rater reliability of (kappa=0.88). To calculate predictive validity, sensitivity and specificity were assessed for 3 consecutive days from the day of cannulation. At a score >21, the sensitivity was 100% and specificity was 100% with area under curve of 1.0 (95% CI 1.0, 1.0) on second day of cannulation. Conclusion The IIEART developed was found to be valid and reliable and can be used by healthcare personnel to predict pediatric patients at risk for intravenous infiltration and extravasation.