Guttman Split-half Coefficient Research Articles

Development of Quality of Life Assessment Questionnaire Associated with Osmophobia in People with Migraine.

It is important to implement disease-specific precautions to develop quality of life in migraine. The effect of osmophobia, which is one of the specific symptoms of migraine that might help to differentiate migraine from other headache disorders, on quality of life is unknown. The aim of the present study was to develop a practicable and reliable scale that assesses the effect of osmophobia on quality of life in migraine. This cross-sectional study was carried out with 163 patients with migraine and 110 healthy individuals for control group. The scale items were constructed based on after literature review, expert opinions, and preliminary trial stage. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the patients by the Neurologist to evaluate the presence of osmophobia retrospectively. Migraine osmophobia-related quality of life assessment (MORA) consisted of 6 items including personal care, eating or cooking, house cleaning, close relationship, social life and traveling. The Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.86; and the Guttman split-half coefficient was 0.83. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.943 (95%) confidence interval [CI] = 0.902-0.984), a cutoff score of >9.5, a sensitivity of 91.6%, a specificity of 85.7%. Mean scores of the MORA differed between people with migraine (with and without osmophobia) and healthy controls (<0.001). MORA is a valid and reliable self-report questionnaire that assesses the effect of osmophobia on quality of life in migraine. This questionnaire appears to be a practicable diagnostic instrument in clinical practice and research.

Knowledge of Artificial Fruit Ripening Among Consumers in Rivers State

The study investigated the knowledge of artificial fruit ripening among consumers in Rivers State. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey design. Four research questions and three null hypotheses tested at .05 alpha level guided the study. The population for the study was 2,617,600 respondents in fruit markets in Rivers State. A sample size of 1,024 fruit consumers was drawn suing multistage sampling procedure. Data were collected using a validated self-structured questionnaire titled "Knowledge of Artificial Fruit Ripening (KAFR)”. Guttman Split-Half Coefficient of 0.881 was obtained using Pearson Product Moment Correlation in conjunction with Spearman Brown correction statistics. Data were analyzed using percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square, z-test, and One way Analysis of Variance. It was found that consumers had moderate knowledge of artificial fruit ripening in Rivers State. Also, male consumers, those within 31-40 years and those with tertiary education had higher knowledge of artificial fruit ripening. More so, the study revealed significant difference in knowledge among consumers in Rivers State based on gender, age and level of education. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that; community health workers in Rivers State should organize regular heath education campaigns concerning the dangers of using chemicals for fruit ripening among consumers in Rivers State. &#x0D;

Measuring “Crabs in a Bucket” phenomenon at schools: A scale development study

The purpose of this research was to develop a “Crabs in a Bucket at Schools Scale” (CBSS) measuring the perceptions of teachers regarding crab mentality in educational organizations. The data of the study was collected in 2019-2020 academic year from high school teachers working at different high schools of Aydın province, located in Aegean Region in Turkey. In order to provide the validity of the measurement tool, content and construct validity analyses were performed. So as to provide content validity, the item pool was subjected to expert view and expert panel. Following this, the data was collected from high school teachers by using the 44-item draft scale and then, the data was subjected to construct validity analysis. For construct validity, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed by using separate datasets (305 participants for EFA and 279 participants for CFA). In an effort to provide the reliability of the scale; Cronbach Alpha, Spearman-Brown and Guttman Split-Half coefficients were calculated. As a result of the analyses, it was concluded that the scale comprised a 27-item and 2 factor (individual factors sub-dimension and organizational factors sub-dimension) structure, and the psychometric properties of CBSS was quite valid and reliable.

Is E-Version Transition of the Medication Adherence Scale Feasible for CKD Management? A Pilot Study.

BackgroundTo transfer a paper-version Chinese and Western medication adherence scale for CKD into an electronic scale, and evaluate its validity, internal consistency and clinical implementation, and assess whether the transition is feasible in clinic.MethodsWe built an e-version Chinese and Western medication adherence scale based on the Wen-JuanXing platform. CKD subjects’ responses were applied to test the scale’s validity and internal consistency. We retested some of the participants two weeks later randomly. We also tested the clinical application.ResultsOf the 434 recruited patients, 228 responded. In exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy = 0.8 and Bartlett’s approx. Chi-Square = 1340.0 (df = 105, p < 0.001). We extracted four common factors which could explain 61.47% of the variance. However, Item 15 “Have you changed a traditional Chinese medicine prescription yourself within the past month?” had factor loading = 0.3 and measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) = 0.5, meaning we could not enter it into the factor analysis. The internal consistency reliability for medication adherence was 0.9, with a Guttman split-half coefficient = 0.5 and a Spearman–Brown coefficient = 0.6. Cronbach’s α was 0.9, 0.4 and 0.5 for the knowledge, belief and behavior domains, respectively. The correlation coefficient r of the test–retest reliability was −0.8 and was −0.8, 0.4, −0.3 in the knowledge, belief and behavior domains, respectively. Patients with comorbidities were more likely to respond. We detected no other significant differences in the clinical profiles between respondents and non-respondents.ConclusionThe e-version Chinese and Western medication adherence scales have undesirable construct validity and internal consistency. Thus, caution is needed in transitioning the paper-version scale into an e-version.

The Effect of Using Short Movies on The Eleventh Grade Students’ Listening Comprehension Achievement

This research was intended to find the effect of using short movies on the eleventh grade students’ listening comprehension. The research design used was quasi-experimental research design with non-equivalent class post-test design. The research context was purposive methods. The research participant was eleventh grade students of SMAN Kalisat. The data collection method was an English listening test with multiple choice and true-false question format. The result of the analysis showed that the test had high content validity with the percentage of 100% valid items. The test also very reliable with the reliability index 0.927 based on Guttman Split-Half Coefficient. The result of difficulty index of the try out test showed that in the multiple choice questions there were 3 items categorized as easy, 17 items were categorized as fair, and 5 items were categorized as difficult. In the true/false questions there are 3 items categorized as easy, 10 items were categorized as fair items, and 2 items were categorized as difficult. The T-test with equal variances assumed, t=-3,686 and p=0,002(&lt;0,05) showed significant difference in the means between two classes. The result of the analysis showed that the null hypothesis (H0) was rejected, meanwhile the alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted. It means there was a significant effect between the experimental and control class after they received different treatment.

Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Occupational Balance Questionnaire: An Instrument for Occupation-Based Research.

Occupational balance (OB) may be a major determinant of health outcomes due to its role in bringing a sense of purpose in the occupations that are personally experienced as a process of getting health and wellness. The Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ) is a reliable instrument for measuring OB, although it has not been adapted and validated in Spain so far; therefore, this study had a double aim: (1) to translate and cross-culturally adapt the original OBQ version into Spanish (OBQ-E); (2) to analyze the psychometric properties for its use in the Spanish population. Standard procedures were used for the cross-adaptation process and pilot testing was carried out using three different samples to extend the applicability of the OBQ-E. Validation measures of the final version of the OBQ-E were conducted in a sample of 219 participants. The OBQ-E showed that items and instructions were culturally appropriate and written clearly. Psychometric testing showed excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87; Guttman split-half coefficient = 0.85), good test–retest reliability (rs (Spearman rho) = 0.73), and acceptable convergent validity (overall status, rs = 0.37; Related Quality of Life, rs = 0.42; Satisfaction with Life Scale, rs = 0.54). The findings suggest that the OBQ-E may be a suitable instrument for assessing OB in the Spanish population; hence, it is a promising tool for epidemiological research that will significantly contribute to the understanding of OB as a health-related factor. Nevertheless, further investigation is also warranted to explore the potentiality of this instrument for clinical purposes.

Validation of patient health questionnaire-9 for assessing depression of adults in Bangladesh

Depression is one of the most widely recognized and frequently underdiagnosed and undertreated mental health issues around the world. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) has been suggested as the best accessible screening and case-discovering instrument to measure the severity of depression. The investigation aimed to set the reliability and validity of the PHQ-9 for the adults in Bangladesh. A total of 321 Bangladeshi adults (170 males and 151 females) were the study participants. A standard process of three phases was followed to adapt PHQ-9 in Bangladesh. The first phase was forward translation, second phase was Focus Group Discussion and panel of expert's rating and third phase was back translation into original language, piloting and final field data collection. The results showed good reliability of the translated version; the total scale Cronbach’s alpha is 0.837, gender-wise 0.839 for males and 0.841 is for females; similarly, the Spearman-Brown Coefficient is 0.855, and the Guttman Split-half coefficient is 0.848, which indicate the high Split-half reliability as well. The content and construct validity suggest that the Bangla PHQ-9 is a valid tool to assess the depression of Bangladeshi adults. Therefore, the Bangla version of PHQ-9 gives an impression of being a reliable and valid instrument to assess and diagnose depression among Bangladeshi people.&#x0D; Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 30(2): 275-281, 2021 (July)

Reliability and Validity of the Chinese General Social Capital Scale and Its Effect on Physical Disease and Psychological Distress among Chinese Medical Professionals.

The study was designed with two objectives. The first was to assess the factor structure, internal consistency reliability, and preliminary psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Chinese-translated General Social Capital Scale (GSCS) in a sample of Chinese medical professionals. The second was to investigate the association between general social capital, physical disease, and psychological distress using the same Chinese sample. The English version of the GSCS was translated into Chinese, and its factor structure, estimates of internal consistency reliability, and psychometric properties were examined in a representative sample of medical professionals. In particular, a total of 3367 participants in Shandong Province, China were identified using the multi-stage stratified sampling method. In addition to the GSCS, preliminary data were collected using self-report instruments that included questionnaires on physical diseases, psychological distress, and general sociodemographic information. Results include internal consistency reliability estimates at 0.933 and acceptable values of the Guttman split-half coefficients for the GSCS and its subscales. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin value for the Chinese GSCS was 0.933, and the p-value of Bartlett’s test was less than 0.001. Exploratory factor analysis supported nine components of the scale with an acceptable cumulative rate (66.63%). The study further found a negative relationship between physical diseases, psychological distress, and social capital. The Chinese version of the GSCS has a satisfactory factor structure, reliability estimates, and satisfactory evidence of concurrent validity estimates for medical professionals from various demographic backgrounds. The current scale holds promise for wide use in future investigations on Chinese populations.

Validity of Chinese Version of Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Health Care Teams Scale.

ObjectiveEffective teamwork can provide safe and effective care in various medical systems. Thus, there is increasing recognition of the value of interprofessional collaborative practice. The Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Health Care Teams Scale (ATIHCTS) has been applied to a wide variety of health professions for evaluating attitudes toward health care teams. The ATIHCTS has been widely used internationally, but no Chinese version has been developed. The aim of this study was to adapt a Chinese version of the ATIHCTS among Chinese health care professionals and to test its validity.MethodsThe English version of the ATIHCTS was translated into Chinese, back-translated, and modified for cultural adaptation according to Brislin’s guideline. A total of 306 health professionals in a Shanghai tertiary hospital were investigated using the Chinese version of the ATIHCTS to test its validity.ResultsThe Chinese version of the ATIHCTS was adjusted based on expert review and pilot testing. According to expert opinions, the text that did not conform to the Chinese language habits and the Chinese medical environment was adjusted. A total of five adjustments were made. After the pilot testing, minor corrections were made to improve the sentence structure of the scale instructions to make it easier to understand. Factor analysis was subsequently conducted with 306 respondents. The Chinese version of the ATIHCTS had 14 items. Exploratory factor analysis extracted two common factors, quality of care and time constraints, with the cumulative variance contribution rate reaching 70.011% and the load value of each entry on its common factor > 0.4. In addition, for scale confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio (X2/df) was 1.46, the normed fit index (NFI) was 0.97, the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) was 0.99, the incremental fit index (IFI) was 0.99, the comparative fit index (CFI) was 0.99, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0.04. The fitting values all met the judgment criteria, and the scale had good structural validity. Cronbach’s α of the Chinese version of the ATIHCTS was 0.861, and the Cronbach’s α values of each factor were 0.949 and 0.838, respectively. The split-half reliability was 0.644, and the Guttman split-half coefficients of each factor were 0.904 and 0.779, respectively.ConclusionThe Chinese version of the ATIHCTS has good validity. It is a valuable tool for evaluating attitudes toward interprofessional health care teams among the health care professionals in China.

Science Engagement Scale: Adaptation, Validation and Reliability Study

In this study, The Science Engagement Scale developed by Wang et al. (2016) was adapted to Turkish and the validity / reliability studies were conducted. The original version of the scale consists of 4 dimensions and 33 items. These dimensions are; cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and social engagement. During the adaptation phase, the items were translated into Turkish by three experts. The Turkish forms were examined and the draft form of the scale was obtained by the researchers. Then, the two experts of the two languages were examined through the language equivalence expert form for word usage and cultural suitability. The participants of the study consisted of 519 students in 6., 7., and 8. grades studied at two secondary schools in a small scale city in south east of Turkey during the 2019–2020 academic year. Convenience sampling method was used to determine the participants. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to the data obtained after the implementation. The fit index values obtained as a result of CFA (χ2 / df = 1.75; RMSEA = 0.038; SRMR = 0.049; RMR = 0.072; CFI = 0.98; NFI = 0.96) show that the 4-factor structure of the scale is acceptable. As a result of the reliability analyzes, the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the Turkish form of the scale was 0.90 and the Guttman Split-half coefficient was 0.81. Finally, it can be said that the validity and reliability of the 33-item and 4-dimensional Turkish form of the scale adapted with this study can be used to determine student engagement in science classes.

Development and psychometric properties of the Caring Behaviors Assessment Tool Nursing Version-Short Form.

To develop and examine the psychometric properties of the Caring Behaviors Assessment Tool Nursing Version-Short Form (CBAN-SF) based on the Theory of Human Caring to assess the nurses' perceptions about caring behaviors. This study is based on the Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments checklist. The study was conducted at the medical-surgical services of Akdeniz University Hospital between October 2019 and January 2020. This study was conducted with 216 nurses working in the surgery and internal clinics. Psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the CBAN-SF with 27 items. It was found that the Content Validity Index (CVI) for the items of the draft scale was between 0.972 and 1.00 and the instrument's CVI had an average score of 0.994. The CBAN-SF had good fit indexes (chi-square goodness of fit / degrees of freedom = 2.914, root mean square error of approximation = 0.075, comparative fit index = 0.984, non-normed fit index = 0.983, normed fit index = 0.972 and standardized root mean square residuals = 0.054) in structural validity. For internal consistency, the Cronbach's alpha, Spearman-Brown and the Guttman split-half coefficients were all 0.974. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the seven subfactors of the scale ranged between 0.793 and 0.904 and had acceptable internal consistency. The item-total score correlation of the scale was 0.648-0.829, and the factor loadings were 0.455-0.769. The structural validity, internal consistency and content validity of the CBAN-SF supported to be a reliable and valid tool for assessment of caring behaviors by nurses.

Women Abuse Screening Tool: A Validation Study on Nigerian Pregnant Women

Domestic violence is identified across the globe as a menace as it poses a threat to the mental health of its victims, the significant others of the victim and the security of a nation at large. In some cases, the victim of domestic violence is a pregnant woman and harm is caused not only to a woman but her fetus also and this calls for urgent psychological assessment and intervention. Although there is no doubt that psychological tests are effective in the assessment of domestic violence, using the psychometric properties obtained from a different population may produce generate inaccurate findings. This paper therefore attempts the validation study of Women Abuse Screening Tool (WAST) using a sample of 379 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at the State Specialist Hospital, Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. The study derived a Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability of 0.758, p &lt;.05 and a Guttman split-half coefficient of 0.683, p &lt;.05. Furthermore, concurrent validity of Women Abuse Screening Tool (WAST) and Ongoing Abuse Screen (OAS) was established as 0.29, p&lt;.05. The norms of the instrument were given as 2.38 for tolerable level of domestic violence and 5.79 for severe and pathological level of domestic violence. Authors conclude that Women Abuse Screening Tool has acceptable psychometric properties to justify its usage for the assessment of level of domestic violence among pregnant women in Nigeria and other nations with similar socio-cultural backgrounds.

Validation of the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) on Nigerian Adolescents

A cross-sectional survey design was adopted to validate The Schutte Self-report Emotions Intelligence Test (SSEIT) using Nigerian secondary school adolescents. A multistage sampling technique was used to purposively select the 200 ( mean a ge 16.00± 2.01) participants made up of 118 males and 82 females from four selected secondary schools in Odeda Local Government Areas of Ogun state Southwestern Nigeria. Participants responded to Schutte Self-report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) and Trait Emotional intelligence Questionnaire Short-Form) (TEIQue-SF). Observed internal consistency of SSIET showed a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .90, a Spearman-Brown coefficient of .91 and Guttman Split-Half coefficient of .91. All items in the scale reported acceptable goodness-of-fit measures revealing corrected item-total correlations range of .60 to .83. Significant positive correlation was also observed between SSEIT and TEIQue-SF revealing concurrent validity score of (r = .656, p = .000). Determined new norms for SSEIT were scores ≥ 44.9 for male and ≥ 43.9 for female. SSEIT is gender sensitive and has acceptable psychometric properties for Nigerian population. Keywords : Validation, emotional intelligence test, Nigerian Adolescents DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-18-19 Publication date: June 30th 2020

Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Version of Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 in Women Diagnosed With Breast Cancer.

BackgroundAnxiety sensitivity (AS) is a trait-like predisposing factor for the prevalence of anxiety in patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3) has been widely used in both general and clinical samples for measuring AS. However, the data about its psychometric properties in women with breast cancer are deficient. In addition, there is no evidence proving the measure equivalence of ASI-3 across sociodemographic variables in the specific sample. Thus, the present study examined the psychometric properties and conducted measure equivalence testing of ASI-3 in Chinese women diagnosed with breast cancer.MethodsThis study included 815 Chinese women diagnosed with breast cancer. Single group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was administrated to detect the factorial validity of ASI-3, and multigroup CFAs were conducted to test the measurement equivalence of ASI-3 across various sociodemographic variables. The reliability of ASI-3 was tested by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, Guttman split-half coefficient, McDonald’s omega coefficient, and test–retest coefficient. The standardized factor loadings, construct reliability, and the average variance extracted of factors were used to measure the construct validity of ASI-3, and the partial correlations were conducted to examine the criterion-related validity of ASI-3.ResultsThe ASI-3 had satisfactory reliability and validity in Chinese women diagnosed with breast cancer; three-factor model fitted the data well in CFA and reached partial strict invariances across age, education, and residence groups.ConclusionThis study explored the psychometric properties and measurement invariance across sociodemographic variables of ASI-3 in Chinese women diagnosed with breast cancer. Our results not only proved that the ASI-3 is an appropriate instrument for measuring AS but also deepened the understanding of ASI-3 in Chinese women with malignancy.

Teacher emotion questionnaire: A Turkish adaptation, validity, and reliability study

The purpose of this study is to carry out the linguistic equivalence, validity and reliability study of the Teacher Emotion Questionnaire (TEQ) developed by Burić, Slišković and Macuka (2018). After ensuring the linguistic equivalence of the Turkish form, responses of 601 teachers were tested by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to ensure the construct validity of the scale. As a result of EFA, the scale was divided into six factors; item factor loads ranged from .49 to .85, and items in the scale explained 68.00% of the total variance. In order to verify the six-factor structure, data were collected from a study group of 255 teachers and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed. Similar results were obtained from CFA, the model was validated and model fit indexes were found to have excellent or acceptable values. After the construct validity of the scale, the reliability analysis was carried out. Cronbach’s alpha (= .92), Spearman-Brown (= .67) and Guttman Split-Half (= .80) coefficients obtained within the scope of internal consistency reliability demonstrated that the scale had the desired internal consistency.

Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Program on Knowledge Regarding Management of Leukaemia among Leukaemia Patients

Introduction: Leukaemia is a blood cancer which affect the bone marrow. The cells of leukaemia or abnormal cells continue to grow and divide, resulting in the normal blood cells being crowded out. Thus, planned teaching on leukaemia management among patients with leukaemia would improve their health and mold them into a healthy quality of life. Aim: To determine the effectiveness of planned teaching program on management of leukaemia among leukaemia patients. Materials and Methods: The interventional one group pre-test and post-test study design with a Quantitative research approach was used. The present study was carried out in selected hospitals of Nagpur from January 2017 to March 2017. The sample size was 60. Validated pre-tested pre-designed structured questionnaires were used. Data collected were entered into the Microsoft Excel sheet. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS software. Frequencies and percentages were presented for categorical variables. Reliability analysis was done by the Guttman split-half coefficient and was found to be 0.90. Results: The pre-test findings show that 23 (38.33%) had a poor level of knowledge score, 31 (51.67%) had average knowledge and 06 (10%) of them had good knowledge and no one of them had found a very good level of knowledge. After planned teaching in the post-test, 12 (20%) had a good knowledge score and 48 (80%) had very good knowledge, showing an increase in the knowledge score, post-test. The Mean score value of the pre-test was 07.57 and the post-test was 21.13 (p-value is 0.001), Hence it indicates that planned teaching was effective. There was a significant association between knowledge scores of leukaemia patients with respect to education of leukaemia patients (p-value 0.014 i.e. &lt;0.05) and area of residence (p-value 0.047 i.e. &lt;0.05). Conclusion: The study showed that the leukaemia management education was successful in improving the awareness about management of leukaemia and thus helps them to understand the nature and management of the disease as well as to take the required measures to avoid complications.

Validation of the Korean Version of the Questionnaire for Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders in Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale.

Background and PurposeImpulse-control disorder is an important nonmotor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) that can lead to financial and social problems, and be related to a poor quality of life. A nationwide multicenter prospective study was performed with the aim of validating the Korean Version of the Questionnaire for Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders in Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (K-QUIP-RS).MethodsThe K-QUIP-RS was constructed using forward and backward translation, and pretesting of the prefinal version. PD patients on stable medical condition were recruited from 27 movement-disorder clinics. Participants were assessed using the K-QUIP-RS and evaluated for parkinsonian motor and nonmotor statuses and for PD-related quality of life using a predefined evaluation battery. The test–retest reliability of the K-QUIP-RS was assessed over an interval of 10–14 days, and correlations between the KQUIP-RS and other clinical scales were analyzed.ResultsThis study enrolled 136 patients. The internal consistency of the K-QUIP-RS was indicated by a Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.846, as was the test–retest reliability by a Guttman split-half coefficient of 0.808. The total K-QUIP-RS score was positively correlated with the scores for depression and motivation items on the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS), Montgomery-Asberg Depression Scale, and Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep-Behavior-Disorders Questionnaire. The total K-QUIP-RS score was also correlated with the scores on part II of the UPDRS and the PD Quality of Life-39 questionnaire, and the dopaminergic medication dose.ConclusionsThe K-QUIP-RS appears to be a reliable assessment tool for impulse-control and related behavioral disturbances in the Korean PD population.

PSYCHOMETRIC APPRAISAL OF THE GERIATRIC SOCIAL WORK COMPETENCY SCALE II WITH LIFELONG LEADERSHIP SKILLS

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Gero-Ed Center and Hartford Partnership Program in Aging Education (HPPAE) emphasize five competency areas specific to social work practice with older adult clientele (i.e., gero social work), namely knowledge and skills applicable to (a) values, ethics and theories; (b) assessment; (c) intervention; (d) aging programs, services and policies; and (e) leadership in aging environments. Accordingly, CSWE/HPPAE created a standardized measure – Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II with Life-long Leadership Skills (GSWCS II) – to assess empirically these practice competencies among social work students and gero social work practitioners. A scant amount of literature exists that reports properties of this measure. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to conduct a psychometric examination of the GSWCS II, namely its factor structure and reliability among the competency areas. The sample consisted of three, advanced year MSW cohorts (N=170) from a state flagship university in the southern United States. Almost one-third of the sample were enrolled in a gerontology specialization during their advanced year. The typical participant was a 27-year-old female enrolled full time, completing the 60-credit hour MSW program. Principal axis factor results indicated unidimensionality, using the traditional 1.0 eigenvalue threshold, for each competency scale. All items loaded moderately-to-strongly on their respective competency scales; loadings ranged from 0.569 to 0.906. Regarding internal consistency for each of the competency scales, Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.932 to 0.959; Guttman split-half coefficients (lambda-4) ranged from 0.896 to .941. Implications for gero practice competency assessment are discussed.

Validity and Reliability of the Persian Version of the Chronic Pain Grade Questionnaire in Patients with Musculoskeletal Pain

Introduction: Chronic pain which is a pain that remains or repeats for more than 3 to 6 months affects one in every 10 people in the world. Rising direct and indirect costs of chronic pain show the importance of researches which help to find better ways of pain management. Testing the validity and reliability of pain measurement tools in different populations can help this kind of researches. The chronic pain grade questionnaire is devised by Vonkorff and his colleagues. This seven-item instrument gives a score which empowers chronic pain patients to be characterized into one of four hierarchical categories according to pain severity or interference. The goal of this research was to test the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the chronic pain grade questionnaire. Methods: As a cross-sectional study after downloading the questionnaire from the internet and translating from English to Persian by researchers and backward translation by a native researcher, it was answered by 204 patients with musculoskeletal pain. These patients were referred to the physical medicine and rehabilitation clinic in Modarres Hospital and were registered using convenience sampling method. Patients were aged between 18 and 87; suffering from musculoskeletal pain (including primary and secondary pains) for at least the last 6 months. Fifty patients were reevaluated after two weeks. Results: As a result of testing reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.89 and the Guttman split-half coefficient was around 0.82 and Test re-test coefficient using Spearman’s correlation coefficient was 0.89. Only a single component was extracted for the questionnaire, as a result of factor analysis. This component defines 59.8% of the variance. Conclusions: In summary, construct validity and reliability of the Persian version of the chronic pain grade questionnaire are approved, therefore it would be applicable to people with musculoskeletal pain in the Iranian population.

Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the spiritual care competency scale in nursing practice: a methodological study

ObjectivesTo determine the validity and reliability of the Spiritual Care Competency Scale (SCCS) among nurses in China.DesignMethodological research.MethodsAfter the SCCS was translated into Chinese, the validity and reliability of the...