National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale in Plain English Is Reliable for Novice Nurse Users with Minimal Training.

UNLABELLED

The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is commonly used in Comprehensive Stroke Centers, but it has not been easily implemented in smaller centers. The aim of this study was to assess whether nurse providers who were naive to stroke assessment scales could obtain accurate stroke severity scores using our previously validated NIH Stroke Scale in Plain English (NIHSS-PE) with minimal or no training.

METHODS

We randomly assigned 122 nursing students who were naive to stroke assessment scales to 1 of 4 groups: trained on the NIHSS, untrained on the NIHSS, trained on the NIHSS-PE, or untrained on the NIHSS-PE. The Trained/NIHSS and Trained/NIHSS-PE groups watched assessment scale-specific training DVDs. All 4 study groups scored the same 3 patients from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke certification DVD, in randomly assigned order. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare group scores with those obtained by a consensus panel of NIHSS-certified expert users, and with each other.

RESULTS

NIHSS-PE users had scores significantly closer to the expert scores compared with NIHSS users (F = 4.656, P = .033). Trained users had scores significantly closer to the expert scores than untrained users (F = 6.607, P = .011). Scores from untrained users of the NIHSS-PE did not differ from those of trained users of the NIHSS (F = 0.08, P = .780).

DISCUSSION

With minimal or no training, novice nurse users of the NIHSS-PE can do as well as, if not better than, novice users of the NIHSS, making this tool useful for facilities pursuing Acute Stroke-Ready certification.