Construction of an assessment scale for thirst severity in critically ill patients and its reliability and validity.
Chunli Liao, Qiongyao Guan, Xiangping Ma and 7 others
PMID 39128973WHAT IT FOUND
An observable ICU thirst scale lets nurses rate patients who cannot report thirst using mouth, sputum, saliva and behaviour signs.
In 178 patients, two nurses rated the same 30 patients closely, but no patient outcomes were tested.
Key findings
01The final nurse-rated scale has eight items and 26 indicators, scored 0 to 3, with higher scores meaning more severe thirst.
02In 178 ICU patients, the eight items separated the high-score and low-score groups, and no item was deleted.
03The scale's overall reliability was .827, and two nurses rating 30 patients agreed at .910.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Patients were a convenience sample of 178 ICU patients from May 2023 to October 2023. Delphi expert consultation introduced subjectivity and potential bias. All participants and experts were from China, so regional and cognitive bias may limit applicability elsewhere. The study did not test clinical application effects, so it does not show that using the scale improves patient outcomes. Thirst is subjective and influenced by health, emotion, and environment, which makes evaluation and management difficult. The high-low group comparison used only 27 patients with scores of 9 or more and 26 patients with scores of 1 or less.
Declared interests
This work was supported by The Science Research Fund Project of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, China (2022 J0155). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat this scale as a tested thirst intervention. It is an assessment tool, and the study did not test whether using it improves patient outcomes.