| Sumario: | Extravasation injury is the severe complication of infusion therapy and requires nurses to assess and manage it appropriately. This comparative study was aimed to determine the accuracy and usability of two extravasation injuries assessment tools. The participants were 50 nurses from a tertiary hospital in Central Thailand. Each nurse was asked to review two parallel sets of photos (72 photos/set) and assessed for the occurrence and the severity of extravasation injuries using the Extravasation Assessment Tool and the Extravasation Scale, both developed by the first author. Photos were taken from 72 patients who had a normal condition (no extravasation) and three severity levels: mild, moderate, and severe extravasation (18 photos/condition/set) were used. Using the known diagnosis of extravasation injury of these patients by trained dermatologists as a reference standard, the accuracy of these tools was determined when used by the nurses. There were 3600 observed data for each tool (50 nurses*72 photos/tool). It was revealed that use of the Extravasation Assessment Tool and the Extravasation Scale produced 2,898 (80.5%) and 3,386 (94.1%) accurate results, respectively with a significant difference in the number of defectives or inaccurate ratings. The sensitivity and specificity of the Extravasation Scale were 0.96 and 0.88, respectively. The usability of the tools was compared and it was found that the Extravasation Scale was more usable as indicated by more nurses being satisfied and very satisfied, with fewer nurses requiring consultation and it was less time-consuming. These results support that the Extravasation Scale can be used to accurately assess the occurrence and severity of extravasation injuries better than the Extravasation Assessment Tool. Nurses should use this tool to help identify extravasation occurrence and severity in clinical practice as quality care would involve early detection and prompt management of this.
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