Reliability and validity of Turkish version of the Individualised Care Scale

To validate an English version of the Individualised Care Scale for use with a Turkish population and evaluate its validity and reliability.

Studies about the evaluation of nursing care from the patients' perspective are becoming more important. No valid and reliable instruments are available in Turkey for evaluating individualised care from the patients' perspective.

Cross-sectional survey design.

Standard forward-back translation techniques were used to obtain semantic equivalence of the Individualised Care Scale. An expert panel considered the translations and provided content validation. A convenience sample of 120 predischarged patients participated in a survey conducted on neurosurgical and orthopaedic wards in a university hospital in Istanbul 2006. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and item analysis established the internal consistency and factor analysis the construct validity of the Individualised Care Scale.

Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0·92 for Individualised Care Scale-A and 0·93 for Individualised Care Scale-B. A principal component analysis supported the construct validity by generating a three-factor solution, which accounted for 65% of the variance in the Individualised Care Scale-A and 62% in the Individualised Care Scale-B. Pearson's correlation coefficients in this data were at least 0·84 between the sub-scales and the total domain Individualised Care Scale-A or Individualised Care Scale-B.

The Turkish version of the Individualised Care Scale is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring patients' evaluations of individualised care. The results of this study provide cross-cultural evidence for the usefulness of the Individualised Care Scale.

The information obtained by the Individualised Care Scale will help nurses to identify areas where developmental work could be undertaken to provide individualised care.