Patient-Completed Caprini Risk Score for Venous Thromboembolism Risk Assessment: Developed and Validated from 1,017 Medical and Surgical Patients

Abstract

Background The Caprini Risk Score (CRS) is one of the most widely used risk assessment models for venous thromboembolism (VTE). A well-validated patient-completed CRS form may allow patients to self-report and simplify the evaluation by health care workers.

Methods The Chinese version of the CRS was optimized for easy understanding in a pilot study. The amended CRS form was completed by prospectively recruited patients and blinded nurses. The agreement levels of the individual questions and the total scores of patient and nurse-completed forms were compared using the Kappa value. The total scores were used for risk stratification of patients. Correlation and differences between patient and nurse-completed forms were analyzed using the Spearman correlation and Bland–Altman method, respectively.

Results We recruited 504 medical patients and 513 surgical patients, aged 52.7 ± 16.3 years, of which 443 (43.6%) were men, and 91.6% of the patients were educated beyond junior high school. The patients spent less time to complete the form compared with trained nurses. There was good question-to-question agreement between patient and nurse-completed CRS (k >0.6 for most questions, p < 0.0001). The total scores also showed good agreement (k = 0.6097, p < 0.0001), and enabled the classification of patients into different risk groups. The patient and nurse-derived scores were highly correlated (Spearman's r = 0.84), and without extreme values (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion We have created and verified a Chinese version of the patient-completed CRS, which showed good agreement and correlation with nurse-completed CRS. CRS represents a suitable tool for VTE risk assessment of hospitalized patients in China.

Keywords

venous thromboembolism - risk assessment - Caprini - self-report - validation

^# Zhu Zhang and Yifan Wu contribute equally as co-first authors. Zhenguo Zhai and Aihua Sun contribute equally as corresponding authors.

Authors' Contributions

A.S. and Z.Z. had full access to all data in the study and take responsibility for the content of the manuscript. A.S. and Z.Z. conceived and designed this research. Z.Z. and Y.W. revised it. Q.L. and F.D. integrated data and analyzed data. Y.W. and Z.Z. wrote the manuscript. W.P., K.Z., J.W., W.X., W.W., and P.Y. contributed to the interpretation of the data and clinic inputs. All authors approved the final version.

Ethical Approval

The study was conducted with informed consent from all participants and approval from the Local Ethics Committees (No. 2017–24).

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

All participants provided informed consent, and the Local Ethics Committees approved the study (No. 2017–24).

Patient Consent for Publication

All included patients informed consent form and consented to publish the study.

Patient Consent for Publication

All patients consented to publish the study.

Provenance and Peer Review

Not commissioned, externally peer-reviewed.

Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Publication History

Received: 04 October 2021

Accepted: 11 January 2022

Article published online:
21 July 2022

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