Developing a family resilience assessment tool for health visiting/public health nursing practice using virtual commissioning, high-fidelity simulation and focus groups

Introduction
UK public health nurse assessment of family resilience is a necessary component of monitoring family health and children’s development, and identifying areas for change. This research was part of an exploration of Welsh public health nurses’ understanding of ‘family resilience’ as a concept underpinning their practice. From it, the Family Resilience Assessment Instrument Tool (FRAITTM www.frait.wales/) was developed for public health nurses use. We report on a virtual commissioning process using focus groups and an immersive simulation suite to test a FRAIT prototype in a safe environment before field-testing.
Methods
Virtual commissioning design: Hydra-Minerva Immersive Simulation Suite - individual public health nurses presented with a multi-media scenario as they used the prototype FRAIT. Follow-up focus groups for usability insights before field-testing.
Findings
Virtual commissioning raised real world issues which public health nurses discussed in focus groups. Issues were - scoring, absence of information, focusing on family resilience, identifying adults caring for children, potential for use, identifying need and monitoring change, potential impact of using FRAIT, and fitting it to everyday practice.
Conclusion
Prototype testing like this allowed us to fine tune the FRAIT for field-testing.