The Parental Stressor Scale: Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Area of Science:

• Pediatric critical care medicine
• Psychological assessment
• Parental well-being

Background:

• Hospitalized children in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) can expose parents to significant environmental stressors.
• Existing instruments may not adequately capture the multifaceted nature of parental stress within the PICU setting.
• A theoretical framework based on stress theory guided the development of a new assessment tool.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive instrument for assessing environmental stressors experienced by parents of children in the pediatric intensive care unit.
• To provide a reliable and valid measure for evaluating the impact of the PICU environment on parental well-being.
• To identify key dimensions of the PICU environment that contribute to parental stress.

Main Methods:

• A three-stage development process was employed, involving item domain establishment, content validity assessment, and scale conceptualization.
• The instrument underwent rigorous reliability and validity testing, including factor analysis, internal consistency reliability, and construct validity analyses.
• The scale was administered to a large cohort of parents (n=675) across multiple pediatric intensive care units.

Main Results:

• The final 62-item instrument demonstrated robust psychometric properties, assessing seven distinct dimensions of the PICU environment.
• Factor analysis confirmed seven orthogonal and invariant factors, supporting the instrument's structural integrity.
• High internal consistency was evidenced by an overall Cronbach's alpha of .95, with subscale coefficients ranging from .72 to .99.

Conclusions:

• The developed instrument is a reliable and valid tool for measuring environmental stressors in the pediatric intensive care unit affecting parents.
• This validated scale can be utilized in clinical and research settings to assess parental stress and inform supportive interventions.
• The findings underscore the importance of evaluating the PICU environment's impact on parental psychological well-being.