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Development and validation of the Children's Competence in Decision-Making Scale
1School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton, Brighton, England.
Nursing Children and Young People
|September 17, 2019
Summary
A new scale, the Children's Competence in Decision-Making (CCD-M) Scale, was developed to measure children's healthcare decision-making competence. This tool helps assess children's ability to participate in their care decisions.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric healthcare research
- Clinical psychology
- Health services research
Background:
- Assessing children's decision-making competence in healthcare presents significant challenges.
- Existing tools do not specifically measure competence in pediatric populations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop, test, and validate the Children's Competence in Decision-Making (CCD-M) Scale.
- To measure competence in the decision-making process for children aged 8-12 with long-term conditions.
Main Methods:
- A convergent, sequential, mixed-methods validation design was employed.
- Scale development followed recommended procedures across four stages.
- Qualitative exploration of children's involvement in decision-making informed scale item generation, followed by psychometric testing.
Main Results:
- The CCD-M Scale demonstrated good internal validity with an overall Cronbach's α of 0.86.
- Analysis indicated excellent internal validity throughout, with no substantial increase in α achievable by deleting items.
- Item deletion analysis showed no significant variation, with values consistently above 0.7.
Conclusions:
- The CCD-M Scale enables practitioners to assess children's competence levels in healthcare decision-making.
- This assessment can inform care planning, potentially enhancing patient adherence and self-management for children with chronic illnesses.