The intensive care unit psychosocial care scale: Development and initial validation

Abstract

The main objective of the current study was to construct a new self-report scale - ICU-PC Scale - to measure the psychosocial care (PC) of patients in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and examine different psychometric issues in the development and initial validation of this scale. The findings indicate that the ICU-PC Scale has established high internal consistency. A three-factor structure - protection of human dignity and rights, transparency for decision making and care continuity and sustained patient, family orientation - has been identified with a substantial number of subjects (N=250) in hospital settings. The three oblique factor solutions are found to be interrelated and interdependent with good indices of internal consistency and content validity. This new instrument is the first of its kind to measure the psychosocial care to be provided to patients in the ICU. The present findings indicate that the ICU-PC scale, with additional factor analytic research, could become an established and clinical tool.