Abstract
Having valid and reliable tools that help health professionals to assess fear in children undergoing medical procedures is essential to offer humanised and quality of care in the paediatric population. The aim of this study was to develop the cross-cultural adaptation and the evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the “Child Medical Fear Scale” in its shortened version (CMFS-R). The design consisted of two phases: first, of cross-cultural adaptation and second, of the psychometric validation of the CMFS-R with a sample of 262 children from Spain, applying a cross-sectional design. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess construct validity and the Cronbach’s alpha and the adjusted item-total score correlation coefficients were performed to study reliability. The results confirmed internal consistency and construct validity of the Spanish version of the CMFS-R, indicating that the scale has an acceptable level of validity and reliability. Therefore, this study brings a new version of the scale to assess fear related to medical procedures for use in the Spanish paediatric population.
Highlights
Most children are afraid of coming into contact with the healthcare environment, be it to see the doctor, go to the emergency room or hospital wards
This methodological study was performed in two stages: a first stage to translate the original instrument into Spanish and a second stage to analyse the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the instrument, applying a cross-sectional design
A comparison was made between the original version of the questionnaire and the back translation, using a panel of experts composed of four nurse researchers with experience in cross-cultural adaptation of instruments and paediatric nurses
Summary
Most children are afraid of coming into contact with the healthcare environment, be it to see the doctor, go to the emergency room or hospital wards. The greatest fear for boys and girls visiting a doctor’s surgery or who have to go into hospital is being separated from their family, receiving injections for the different procedures and having to be in hospital for a long time [3–5]. Fear is an innate response that is regulated with maturity and that depends on each child. It is defined as a specific biological and psychological response to something real or imaginary [6]. Medical fear is defined as “fear of any experience that involves medical personnel or procedures involved in the process of evaluating or modifying health status in traditional healthcare settings” [7] Medical fear is defined as “fear of any experience that involves medical personnel or procedures involved in the process of evaluating or modifying health status in traditional healthcare settings” [7] (p. 10)
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