The development of a validated checklist for femoral venous catheterization: preliminary results.

Femoral venous catheterization is a common, invasive procedure, which may lead to serious complications. Validated checklists are central to teaching and assessing procedural skills and may result in improved health care quality. The results of the first step of the validation of a femoral venous catheterization checklist are described. A comprehensive literature review of articles published on femoral venous catheterization did not yield a checklist validated by the Delphi method. A modified Delphi technique, involving a panel of 8 interdisciplinary, interinstitutional experts, was used to develop a femoral venous catheterization checklist. The internal consistency coefficient using Cronbach α was .99. Developing a 29-item checklist for teaching and assessing femoral venous catheterization is the first step in the validation process. For this checklist to become further validated, it should be implemented and studied in the simulation and clinical environments.