2022 Volume 34 Issue 2 Pages 39-50
We developed the Communication Skill Scale for Home Visiting Staff (CHVS), consisting of two subscales: communication skills for providing home care (CHVS-U); and communication skills for cooperating with coworkers and allied health professionals (CHVS-C). We selected preliminary items for the CHVS from a survey and semi-structured interviews with randomly selected home visiting staffs (N=181) who responded to questions. Factor analysis of their responses using the maximum likelihood method and Promax rotation extracted 36 items and three underlying dimensions of each subscale. The dimensions of the CHVS-U included “Acceptance of users,” “Understanding users,” and “Empathetic attitudes,” and in the CHVS-C, “Collaborative attitude,” “Information sharing,” and “Teamwork.” The test of reliabilities and Good-Poor analysis indicated the adequate reliability of the CHVS (CHVS-U: α=.97, CHVS-C: α=.96). Moreover, the inter-rater reliability using intra-class correlation coefficients showed high agreement. The internal consistencies of the factors were significantly associated with the ENDCOREs for assessing general communication skills, confirming the scale’s criterion-related validity. The CHVS showed preliminary evidence of reliability and validity. Investigating factors determining communication abilities of home visiting staff is expected to have practical uses in the future.
