Development and validation of the Communicating with Family about Brain Death Scale

This study reports development of a scale assessing communication with family about brain-dead organ donation. Two cross-sectional studies demonstrated scale validity. Tests of internal, external, and predictive validity were conducted using confirmatory factor analysis. In both studies, the same 6 items were shown to be unidimensional with acceptable reliability. Parallelism was shown between the Brain Death Scale and a measure of communication with family. Predictive validity was exhibited between participants' donor status and the Brain Death Scale. The scale was associated with knowledge about brain death confirming misconceptions about brain-dead organ donation.