Development of a Scale to Measure Nurses' Ability to Provide Initial Care for Imported Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Appropriate initial care for patients who bring infectious diseases into a country from another country is important for providing timely medical treatment, preventing disease spread, and preventing occupational infection. This study developed a scale to measure nurses' ability to provide initial care for cases of imported infectious diseases. The literature in the fields of travel medicine, infectious disease nursing, infection control, and public health was comprehensively examined, and an item pool was prepared. After examining the content and face validity of the item pool, the approval rate and discrimination capacity were examined, and a questionnaire was created from the 102 candidate items for the scale. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 1,350 nurses working in the initial care departments of hospitals nationwide in Japan. A total of 320 responses were analyzed. An exploratory factor analysis was performed by examining the ceiling-floor effect and item-total and inter-item correlations. The "Scale of Nurses' Initial Care Ability for Imported Infectious Disease Ver. 1.0" was developed, comprising Factor 1 "Knowledge of imported infectious disease" (18 items), Factor 2 "Infectious disease nursing practice and infection control" (18 items), and Factor 3 "Infectious disease assessment and nursing care planning" (11 items). Cronbach's α coefficient for the entire scale was 0.958, and reliability was confirmed with internal consistency. From the results of a confirmatory factor analysis, the model was judged to have good goodness-of-fit and construct validity. The next step will be necessary to examine criterion validity. This scale can be used to understand educational needs and as an educational introductory tool to develop effective educational programs.