Nursing assessment is the basis for performing interventions that match patient needs, but nurses perceive it as an administrative load. This research aims to develop and validate a meta-instrument that integrates the assessment of functional capacity, risk of pressure ulcers and risk of falling with a more parsimonious approach to nursing assessment in adult hospitalization units. Specifically, this manuscript presents the results of the development of this meta-instrument (VALENF instrument). A cross-sectional study based on recorded data was carried out in a sample of 1352 nursing assessments. Socio-demographic variables and assessments of Barthel, Braden and Downton indices at the time of admission were included. The meta-instrument’s development process includes: (i) nominal group; (ii) correlation analysis; (iii) multiple linear regressions models; (iv) reliability analysis. A seven-item solution showed a high predictive capacity with Barthel (R²adj = 0.938), Braden (R²adj = 0.926) and Downton (R²adj = 0.921) indices. Likewise, reliability was significant (p < 0.001) for Barthel (ICC = 0.969; τ-b = 0.850), Braden (ICC = 0.943; τ-b = 0.842) and Downton (ICC = 0.905; κ = 7.17) indices. VALENF instrument has an adequate predictive capacity and reliability to assess the level of functional capacity, risk of pressure injuries and risk of falls.

The nursing assessment is the first step of the nursing process and fundamental to detecting patients’ care needs and at-risk situations. This article presents the psychometric properties of the VALENF Instrument, a recently developed meta-instrument with only seven items that integrates the assessment of functional capacity, risk of pressure injuries and risk of falls with a more parsimonious approach to nursing assessment in adult hospitalization units. A cross-sectional study based on recorded data in a sample of 1352 nursing assessments was conducted. Sociodemographic variables and assessments of the Barthel, Braden and Downton instruments were included at the time of admission through the electronic health history. Thus, the VALENF Instrument obtained high content validity (S-CVI = 0.961), construct validity (RMSEA = 0.072; TLI = 0.968) and internal consistency (Ω = 0.864). However, the inter-observer reliability results were not conclusive, with Kappa values ranging between 0.213 and 0.902 points. The VALENF Instrument has adequate psychometric properties (content validity, construct validity, internal consistency and inter-observer reliability) for assessing the level of functional capacity, risk of pressure injuries and risk of falls. Future studies are necessary to establish its diagnostic accuracy.

Aims: To develop and validate an instrument that integrates functional capacity, risk of pressure ulcers and risk of falling with a more parsimonious approach towards nursing assessments in hospitalization units.Design: Cross‐sectional validation multicentre study.Methods: Socio‐demographic variables and assessments of Barthel Index, Braden Index and Downton Scale are included via electronic health records. Instrument's development process will include: (i) conceptual assessments; (ii) content validity; (iii) construct validity; (iv) internal consistency and (v) interobserver reliability. The analysis will consider possible differences in medical and surgical hospitalization units, hospitalization type or being a COVID‐19 patient. This study was accepted for funding in November 2020 and approved by the Ethics and Research Committee in January 2021.Results: An integrated instrument that lowers the administrative load of nursing assessments and allows at‐risk patients to be detected with at least the same validity and reliability as the original instruments is expected to be obtained.

The main objective of this study was to analyze the impact of a multifaceted strategy to improve the assessment of functional capacity, risk of pressure injuries, and risk of falls at the time of admission of patients in adult hospitalization units. This was a secondary analysis of the VALENF project databases during two periods (October–December 2020, before the strategy, and October–December 2021, after the strategy). The quantity and quality of nursing assessments performed on patients admitted to adult hospitalization units were evaluated using the Barthel index, Braden index, and Downton scale. The number of assessments completed before the implementation of the new strategy was n = 686 (28.01%), versus n = 1445 (58.73%) in 2021 (p < 0.001). The strategy improved the completion of the evaluations of the three instruments from 63.4% (n = 435) to 71.8% (n = 1038) (p < 0.001). There were significant differences depending on the hospitalization unit and the assessment instrument (p < 0.05). The strategy employed was, therefore, successful. The nursing assessments show a substantial improvement in both quantity and quality, representing a noticeable improvement in nursing practice. This study was not registered.

The Continuity of Care Report (CCR) is a fundamental document for ensuring high-quality healthcare and a smooth transition between different levels of care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of optimizing the CCR to improve its completion rate by hospital nurses and its review by primary care nurses. To achieve this, a retrospective observational study was conducted on patients discharged from the University Hospital of La Plana de Vila-real during two three-month periods, one prior to the CCR improvement (2022) and one after (2023). No increase in the completion rate for the CCR was observed following its optimization (p = 0.226). However, a statistically significant improvement was noted in the percentage of reports reviewed (p > 0.001), increasing from 4.4% (n = 49) in 2022 to 30.5% (n = 327) in 2023. These results indicate that the optimization of the Continuity of Care Report enhances the communication between specialized care and primary care professionals.