Validity and reliability study of Barf nausea scale

AIM: Nausea and/or vomiting may cause tracheal aspiration among the patients who did not become conscious yet after anesthesia, rupture of wound site or wound infection, recurrent and severe dehydration and electrolyte impairments among children. Nausea and/or vomiting, which are also unpleasant clinical problems in the post-surgery period, have negative outcomes related to patient satisfaction, morbidity, hospital stay and medical costs. It is very important to detect and to prevent these clinical problems at an early period. Therefore, it is necessary to objectively assess nausea, which is a subjective perception. The aim of the current study was to discover validity and reliability of BARF Nausea Scale among the children. METHOD: The sample of the study, which was in methodological model, was consisted of 82 children aged 7-18 years who were treated at the Inpatient Pediatric Surgery Clinics. BARF Nausea Scale is a pictorial nausea scale that rates nausea from neutral (no nausea) to emesis (maximum nausea) with six items and six face expressions that describe each of these items. Because the scale, which was developed in English language, includes assessments based on perceptions, Turkish translation and back-translation procedures were not performed. For the content validity; expert reviews were obtained. While the findings obtained from the study were being evaluated; descriptive statistical methods such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov distribution test, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test and Pearson Correlation Analyses were employed. Cochran's Q test was used to determine the suitability of scale-options in theoretically measuring nausea-vomiting. FINDINGS: 61 % of the children aged 7-18 years were male. It was identified that 50 % of the children were operated due to gastrointestinal problems, 81.1 % of them did not get premedication, 91.5 % of them did not use antiemetic medicines and 41.5 % of them started to eat 5-6 hours later after the surgery. It was noted that opinions of all of the experts were consistent in terms of content validity and that BARF and VAS which was previously found to be suitable for the Turkish people could statistically be accepted as equal (Cochran's Q = 9; p=0.437). RESULT: In the parallel test in which VAS and BARF were compared; it was understood that BARF was reliable in assessing nausea and vomiting. In light of these results; it may be suggested that items of BARF Nausea Scale was a valid and reliable tool in theoretically measuring nausea-vomiting. It is recommended that BARF Nausea Scale be used for the children over ≥ 7 years to measure nausea after operations. Key Words: Child, BARF Nausea Scale, Visual Analog Scale, Nausea, Vomiting,