Systematic review of measurement properties of instruments assessing nurses' attitudes towards the importance of involving families in their clinical practice.

Abstract

To identify, appraise and describe the characteristics and measurement properties of instruments assessing nurses' attitudes towards the importance of involving families in their clinical practice. Psychometric systematic review. The PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases were searched from their time of inception to June 2018. Two reviewers independently assessed the eligibility of studies, extracted data, and appraised the methodological quality of the studies using the COSMIN checklist. A total of 19 studies representing 5 instruments were included. Two instruments-a revised version of the Families' Importance in Nursing Care: Nurses' Attitudes scale (FINC-NA-R) and the Family Nurse Practice Scale (FNPS)-obtained higher scores for most of their properties. The instruments used in the remaining eight studies require further assessment of their psychometric properties. This psychometric review offers a synthesis of the quality of the available instruments and gives a better understanding of nursing theory-based tools. The FNPS and FINC-NA-R instruments seem to be the most suitable measures of nurses' attitudes towards the importance of involving families in their clinical practice. The growing emphasis on improving nurse-family relationships and the quality of care provided makes it necessary to have valid and reliable instruments for assessing nurses' attitudes towards the importance of involving families in their clinical practice. This paper provides evidence that will help clinicians and researchers make decisions about the most suitable instrument based on a critical appraisal and comparison of the measurement properties according to a rigorous methodology.