Psychometric testing of the Chinese evidence-based practice scales

This article is a report of the psychometric testing of the Chinese version of Evidence-Based Practice Implementation and Beliefs, and Barriers to, and Facilitators of Research Utilization scales.

Investigations into the effect of evidence-based practice on clinical care could be facilitated by instruments for measuring the levels of evidence-based practice implementation; the strength of beliefs in evidence-based practice; the barriers to, and the facilitators of research utilization. An English version of the scales measuring the above constructs has been tested whereas the Chinese one has not.

Instrument development.

Psychometric analyses of the four evidence-based scales were conducted on a sample of 361 nurses from a medical centre in Taiwan. Both the internal consistency and squared multiple correlation coefficients were used to examine reliability. The validity testing for the four scales was estimated by examining their construct and concurrent validity. Data were collected between December 2008-January 2009.

Internal consistencies exist for the Chinese Evidence-Based Practice Implementation, Beliefs, and Barriers to, and Facilitator of Research Utilization scales (≥0·85); some were greater than 0·9, which may indicate redundancy in items. Construct validity of the four scales was supported by hypotheses testing. Concurrent validity of the four scales was supported by known-group analysis, in which experienced nursing researchers had higher scores compared with clinical nurses.

These scales may have value in discrimination between implementation of EBP and perception of barriers to, and facilitators of research utilization among nurses with different education levels, research experiences or working years in clinical setting.