[Italian Validation of Evidence Based Practice Evaluation Competence Questionnaire (EBP-COQ)]

due to the nature of Evidence-Based Practice and its relevance to nursing, the skills that it requires should be integrated in the healthcare degree programs. Therefore, the Evidence-Based Practice process should be introduced in the nursing education program to strengthen the students' independence and self-learning skills. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the academic teaching and the assessment of the competence degree achieved by students are hindered by the lack of validated assessment instruments. In the Italian context, today there is no instrument to assess the knowledge, skills and attitudes to Evidence-Based Practice.

the authors aimed at validating, for the Italian context, the Evidence-Based Practice Evaluation Competence Questionnaire (EBP-COQ).

this study was an Italian linguistic and cultural adaptation of a research instrument. To this end, the Beaton and Sousa Model were used. These models require six phases and aim at producing a pre-final version of the instrument to be submitted to a sample of nursing students.

Each item has reached a content validity index (I-CVI) value equal to or greater than 0.9 and a scale validity index (S-CVI) value of 0.992 for the whole questionnaire. The study has confirmed the reliability of the instrument's internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.892. The reliability of the test-retest confirms the stability of the questionnaire over time (Pearson's r = 0.976). The factorial analysis confirmed the construct validity.

the instrument has been validated in its psychometric characteristics and is ready to be administered to Italian nursing students.