Research utilisation in older people care: Translation, cross-cultural adaptation and validation of instruments into...

To translate and culturally validate the Estabrooks' Kinds of Research Utilization (RU) and the Conceptual Research Utilization Scale (CRU) into Brazilian Portuguese; and to describe the research use by health professionals working on Long Term Care Institutions (LTCI) for older people.

Research utilisation ensures greater quality and effectiveness in the care provided by health professionals. However, there are no instruments to evaluate research utilisation in Latin America countries, like Brazil.

A methodological cross-sectional questionnaire validity and descriptive study. The translation and adaptation of the instruments was performed in seven steps following psychometric guidelines. The instruments evaluate research utilisation by health professionals in clinical practice. The RU is composed of single-items of instrumental, persuasive, conceptual and overall forms; and the CRU the conceptual form through a 5-item scale. Professionals of technical level and graduated working in nine LTCI were evaluated from August to December 2018. Descriptive and inferential (reliability, correlation, internal consistency and structure of CRU) analyses were conducted.

Sample composed of 117 professionals, 67.5% of healthcare aides and 32.5% of graduated health professionals. All forms of research utilisation showed high implementation in practice (about 75% of the time, or frequently). CRU internal consistency (α = 0.885) and structure were adequate. There were significant correlations between RU and CRU (from very low r = 0.187 to high r = 0.712). Intra-rater, inter-rater and alternate forms reliability ranged from moderate to substantial.

The Brazilian versions of the RU and the CRU are valid, reliable and acceptable for evaluating research utilisation by professionals working on LTCI. It is of great relevance to introduce these instruments in low- and middle-income countries to have future data on how much older people care is influenced by the best evidence available. These instruments can be adapted to different healthcare settings and populations.