Development and validation of traditional & complementary medicine (TCM) scales for nurses: Using structural equation...

Area of Science:

• Nursing Research
• Health Sciences
• Instrument Development

Background:

• Assessing nurses' attitudes and communication skills in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is crucial for patient care.
• Existing instruments may not adequately capture these specific competencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate reliable and valid scales to measure nurses' attitudes towards patient's use of TCM (APUTCM).
• To develop and validate reliable and valid scales to measure nurses' communicative competence in TCM (CCTCM).

Main Methods:

• Instrument development involved item generation, expert review, content validation, and pilot testing.
• A total of 755 registered and advanced practice nurses in Taiwan completed an online questionnaire.
• Statistical analyses included reliability testing, validity assessment (convergent and divergent), and model fit evaluation using SPSS and AMOS.

Main Results:

• Both the 13-item APUTCM and the five-item CCTCM scales achieved content validity indexes (S-CVI) over 80%.
• Reliability was high, with Cronbach's alpha of 0.88 for APUTCM and 0.84 for CCTCM.
• Model fit indices (GFI, AGFI, CFI, RMSEA, chi-square/df) indicated suitable parameters for both scales, and convergent/divergent validity supported the expected relationships.

Conclusions:

• The 13-item APUTCM scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing nurses' attitudes toward patient's TCM use.
• The five-item CCTCM scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing nurses' communicative competence in TCM.
• These scales provide valuable tools for evaluating and improving nursing practice related to TCM.