Development and evaluation of the nurse quality of communication with patient questionnaire

Nurse/patient relationship as a complex interrelation or as an interaction of the factor patient and factor nurse has been a subject of a number of studies during the past ten years. Nurse/patient communication is a special entity, usually observed within a framework of the wider nurse/patient relationship. In that regard, we wanted to develop a standardized questionnaire that could reliably measure the quality of communication between nurse and patient, and be used by nurses.

The main goal of this study was to develop and evaluate construct validity of the Nurse Quality of Communication with Patient Questionnaire (NQCPQ), as well as to evaluate its reliability. The goal was also to establish a measure of inter-raters reliability, using two repeated measurements of results by items and scores of the NQCPQ, on the same observed units by two assessors.

The starting NQCPQ that consists of 25 items, was filled in by two groups of nurses. Each nurse was questioned during morning and afternoon shifts, in order to evaluate their communication with hospitalized patients, using marks from 1 to 6. To evaluate construct validity, we used the analysis of main components, while reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient and Cronbach-alpha coefficient. To evaluate interraters reliability, we used Pearson correlation coefficient.

Using a group of 118 patients, we explained 86% of the unknown, regarding the investigated phenomenon (communication nurse/patient), using one component by which we separated 6 items of the questionnaire. Inter-item correlation (alpha) in this component was 0.96. Pearson correlation coefficient was highly significant, value 0.7 by item, and correlation coefficient for scores at repeated measurements was 0.84.

NQCPQ is 6-item instrument with high construct validity. It can be used to measure quality of nurse/patient communication in a simple, fast and reliable way. It could contribute to more adequate research and defining of this problem, and as such could be used in studies of interaction of psychometric, clinical, biochemical, socio-cultural, demographic and other parameters as well.