Introduction:

Consensus has not been achieved about a method for the development and validation of scales, and various methodological approaches are applied for this purpose.

Objective:

Develop a proposal of criteria to validate clinical classifications.

Method:

A qualitative study was conducted. Ten Doctors of Medicine and one Master of Science were selected from Raúl González Sánchez Dental School of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana. All had the teaching category of Full Professor, except for the Master of Science, who was an Associate Professor. All the evaluators had the category of researcher. The Delphi method was used to contrast and combine the arguments issued, let the researcher take decisions, and reach conclusions about the criteria proposed. The evaluation was anonymous and all participants took the expert self-assessment test. Each expert was shown the proposal and asked to suggest any new criterion to be added, as well as any modification or question they might have, which would be subjected to approval by the remaining participants. As many rounds were performed as required to reach consensus and final approval.

Results:

The 11 experts selected for the study obtained scores of 0.8-1 in the expert self-assessment survey. Seven participants (63.6%) obtained a competence coefficient of 1.

Conclusions:

The final proposal of items was composed of five criteria: objective, clinically justifiable, exhaustive, understandable and mutually exclusive, and sensitive to changes.

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