Development of the Content and Quality in Briefs Instrument (CQB-I).

Objective: The Content and Quality in Briefs Instrument (CQB-I) was designed to develop a valid and reliable audit instrument to examine the content and quality of information in documents (briefs) created in the early stages of designing healthcare environments.

Background: The importance of effective briefing has been emphasized in many research studies during the past two decades. However, there is no developed instrument for auditing the content and quality of these documents.

Methods: The study had a methodological and developmental design based on an established methodology for instrument development and validation. The development process consisted of three main phases: (1) item generation and scale construction; (2) assessment of face and content validity, and (3) testing of the reliability. To obtain face and content validity, expert panels reviewed the COB-I. Content validity was assessed using the Content Validity Index (I - CVI = item level, S - CVI = scale level). Reliability was tested by test-retest and inter-rater reliability.

Results: CQB-I was found to have good content validity (I - CVI = 0.78 - 1.0 and S - CVI = 0.98). Inter-rater reliability was acceptable (Spearman's correlation = 0.62) and stability was considered high for both raters (83% and 88%, respectively).