Reliability And Validity of Bedside Oral Exam Tool’s Turkish Version: Methodological Study

Objective: This study aims to assess the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Bedside Oral Exam Tool. Material and Method: This methodological study was conducted in the Anesthesia and Reanimation intensive care unit of a university hospital in Izmir, Turkey. Ninety patients were evaluated by three independent nurse-observers: two academic specialists in oral care and one specialist intensive care unit nurse. To assess content validity, expert opinions were collected, and the Content Validity Index was calculated. Interobserver agreement was measured using Gwet’s AC1 coefficient, while internal consistency was analyzed using Cronbach’s Alpha. Interobserver reliability was determined through intraclass correlation coefficients. Results: Each assessment was completed in ≤3 minutes. The Content Validity Index for the BOE subscales ranged between 0.897 and 1.000. The Kappa agreement coefficient for the Bedside Oral Exam subscales ranged from 0.937 to 1.000, indicating “perfect agreement” among observers. The overall Cronbach’s Alpha value for the BOE was 0.998, demonstrating very high internal consistency (ICC = 0.999). Conclusion: The findings indicate that the BOE and its subscales have near-perfect interobserver reliability, making it a valid and reliable tool for assessing oral health in ICU patients. Keywords: Intensive care, nursing, oral care, reliability, scale, validity