Background

Imperial College Assessment of Technical Skills for Nurses (ICATS-N) is a tool designed to capture a range of technical skills required of scrub nurses or scrub technicians working within operating theatres. ICATS-N assesses four broad skill categories – as follows: (i) Gowning & Gloving, (ii) Setting up instrumentation, (iii) Draping, and (iv) Maintaining sterile field.

ICATS-N has been used successfully within the context of simulation-based training for operating theatre nurses and preliminary evidence has been provided for the feasibility, reliability and validity of the tool.

Download

ICATS-N (PDF)

Selected bibliography

Sevdalis N, Undre S, Henry J, Sydney E, Koutantji M, Darzi A, Vincent CA. Development, initial reliability and validity testing of an observational tool for assessing technical skills of operating room nurses. International Journal of Nursing Studies 2009;46:1187-93. Pubmed

Undre S, Koutantji M, Sevdalis N, Selvapatt N, Williams S, Gautama S, McCulloch P, Darzi A, Vincent CA. Multi-disciplinary crisis simulations: The way forward for training surgical teams. World Journal of Surgery 2007;31:1843-53. Pubmed

Contact

For further information on ICATS-N, please contact Nick Sevdalis.