Process Measurement in Safe Patient Handling and Movement: A Literature Review

Opportunities exist to improve the reporting of validity and reliability of safe patient handling and movement (SPHM) measures. Healthcare leaders need process measures to assess SPHM implementation progress but little information exists regarding measurement in SPHM. The purpose of this literature review is to summarize strengths and weaknesses of existing SPHM survey (or questionnaire) instruments, focusing on process measures and psychometric testing. Our literature search resulted in 12 papers with surveys that measure process aspects of SPHM. We organized the papers according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM) 2011 Levels of Evidence and considered their quality via validity and reliability assessment. Nearly all surveys contained process measures such as frequency of equipment use and patient handling tasks, along with items regarding equipment type and work factors. We recommend future research to develop theory-based instruments with rigorous psychometric testing to quantify SPHM processes and improve implementation endeavors.

Zadvinskis IM, Wills CE, Chipps E, Patterson ES

Keywords: process measurement, safe patient handling and movement, evaluation, outcome measures