[Initial validation of a new scale for needs: the inventory of family needs]

This article presents the initial validation study results of a new scale to measure family needs: l'Inventaire des besoins des familles (IBF) (Chartier & Coutu-Wakulczyk, 1988). The scale is available in both French and English. Based on the perceptual theory, the IBF is a self-report scale composed of 33 items. It also offers three (3) different sub-scores of the importance of needs: the Global Score of Needs (GSN), the Intensity Need Index (INN) and the Total Number of Needs (TNN). The IBF was first validated on a sample of 207 subjects drawn from the adult population of immediate family members visiting a patient in a surgical intensive care unit in the CHUS in Sherbrooke. The reliability yielded a 0.91 Cronback Alpha coefficient and the homogeneity coefficient for Spearman-Brown and Guttman procedures were 0.89 and 0.86 respectively. The principal component factor analysis and factorial matrices lead to examine the conceptual structure of five independent factors.