Development of a Sexual Health Care Scale-Practice (SHCS-P) for Oncology Nursing Care

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Sexual Health Care Scale-Practice (SHCS-P) for oncology nurses to use in nursing care.

Apreliminary version of the SHCS-P of 32 items was developed based on the literature and opinion of experts. A panel of eight experts reviewed the preliminary questionnaire for content validity and consolidated the instrument, which was, then, tested with data from 342 oncology nurses in Korea.

Exploratory factor analysis showed that the SHCS-P explained 70.49% of the total variance. The instrument revealed four factors that were named: (1) Practice for sexual function (8 items), (2) Practice for psychological factors (6 items), (3) Practice for social problems and records (4 items), and (4) Practice for reproductive care (3 items). Internal consistency was good, asassessed by the KR 20 value of 0.91. The coefficients for the sub-factors were between 0.81 and 0.93.

This scale shows validity and reliability in evaluating the practice of oncology nurses in providing sexual health care and can be used to evaluate the level of practice well as test effects of educational interventions to improve sexual health care competency.