DEVELOPMENT OF A UNIFORM DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT FOR NURSE-MIDWIFERY QUALITY ASSESSMENT ACROSS BIRTH SETTINGS (MIDWIFERY).
Contributors: University of Utah.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 245
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to develop a uniform method of collecting prospective data for describing and assessing the quality of nurse-midwifery clinical practice across various practice settings and birth sites. The instrument developed in this study was called the Nurse-Midwifery Clinical Data Set (NMCDS). Donabedian's structure-process-outcome approach to quality assessment was used as a conceptual framework. Data were collected to explore the reliability and validity of the resultant descriptions of nurse-midwifery care and the construct validity of potential inferences about quality drawn from the data, and to examine the feasibility and utility of the instrument for data collection with multiple providers in different clinical settings.

Three volunteering nurse-midwifery services, representing all possible birth settings (the home, free-standing birth center, and hospital), were chosen as the pilot test sample. The NMCDS was used by the nurse-midwives to collect information about all clients in their practices who delivered during the 8 weeks of the pilot study ($N$ = 69). The nurse-midwives using the instrument were also interviewed to determine their responses to the use of the NMCDS.

While the procedures used in developing the NMCDS provided evidence for the content-related validity of the measure, interview data and item-completion rates of 94% to 98% provided evidence for the utility and feasibility of the NMCDS. When selected outcome data on half of the forms were compared with the medical record, the average percentage of agreement was 86%. There were no significant differences in percentage of agreement between the data collected on the NMCDS and medical records data when 19 cases with complications were compared with 19 normal controls. Outcome data were also obtained on 53 deliveries conducted in the same services prior to the initiation of the pilot study, and the distribution of outcomes compared with NMCDS data. Minimal differences were found, providing additional evidence that NMCDS data were valid for quality assessment purposes.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-09, Section: B, page: 3918.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, 1989.

School code: 0240.