Construct validity and reliability of the BARRIERS scale in the Spanish context

Area of Science:

• Nursing Research
• Psychometrics
• Health Services Research

Background:

• The BARRIERS scale measures factors influencing healthcare professionals' adoption of innovations.
• Validating Spanish versions of measurement tools is crucial for diverse healthcare settings.
• Previous studies established the original BARRIERS scale's psychometric properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish the construct validity of the Spanish version of the BARRIERS scale.
• To assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish BARRIERS scale using advanced statistical methods.
• To provide a validated instrument for measuring barriers to innovation adoption among Spanish-speaking nurses.

Main Methods:

• Methodological study involving confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and RASCH analysis.
• Data collected from 1200 nurses in the Basque Health Service and Canary Health Service.
• Analysis included KMO, RMSEA, GFI, infit-WMS, and outfit-UMS statistics for construct validation.

Main Results:

• The Spanish BARRIERS scale showed good overall fit in CFA (KMO=0.935, RMSEA=0.026, GFI=0.991).
• RASCH analysis indicated good fit for most items and adequate reliability and separation for persons and items.
• Six items required factorial assignment changes, and five items loaded on multiple factors.

Conclusions:

• The Spanish version of the BARRIERS scale possesses adequate construct validity.
• The scale is suitable for use in Spanish-speaking healthcare contexts, with noted modifications to item-dimension alignment.
• Both confirmatory factor analysis and RASCH analysis support the scale's utility and psychometric integrity.