The adaptation of the scale of the attitudes and behaviors of icu nurses intended for end of life care to the Turkish culture: The validity and reliability study

The aim of this study was the analysis of psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the scale of the attitudes and behaviors of ICU nurses intended for end of life care. This study was conducted on 170 nurses who work at the adult ICU of public and university hospitals in Bolu and Düzce city centers. The data were collected between October 2014-January 2015. The validity of the content of the scale was evaluated by getting opinions from nine experts. Frequency, percentage, correlation analysis, Cronbach's alpha analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used for the evaluation of the data. In order to determine the known groups validity of the scale, analysis between the variable with mean scores of the scale were evaluated by one-way ANOVA test. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of whole scale was found as 0.70, the two subscales reliability coefficients were 0.71 and 0.65, respectively. No significant difference was found between the average scale scores of test-retest done two-three weeks apart for evaluation of the invariance of scale with time (r=0.97). As a result of exploratory factor analysis, sampling adequacy calculated by Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient was 0.931 and Bartlett test result was highly significant (x2=3.680, p=0.000). As a result of exploratory factor analysis made by varimax rotation the eigenvalues of scale items was gathered under two factors greater than 1, it was found that all the items' factor loading values vary between 0.42 and 0.77. The confirmatory factor analysis done for evaluation of validity of factor structure based on the results of exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale is compatible with the original scale, confirmed the two factorial structure, and the items and their sublevels are associated with the scale. The results, the scale of the attitudes and behaviors of ICU nurses intended for end of life care consisting of all 16 likert-type items and two factors includes the same sublevels with the original version and showed that the results of validity and reliability are acceptable. Key words: Behavior, Validity, Reliability, Attitude, End of life care, ICU nurse