Development and its reliability and validity of the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Scale for Informal Caregivers of...

There is a lack of scientifically validated tools to measure the knowledge attitude and practice (KAP) of informal caregivers for patients with pressure injury (PI). This study aims to develop a KAP Scale for Informal Caregivers of PI Patients and to evaluate its reliability and validity.

Based on the KAP theory framework and relevant literature, an initial pool of items was created through expert brainstorming sessions. The initial scale was formed after a Delphi expert consultation and a preliminary survey. From April to October 2023, a convenient sample of informal caregivers for PI patients was recruited from an inpatient department of the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, as well as its associated community and nursing homes. The first round included 186 participants, and the second round included 213 participants, who were used for item analysis and reliability and validity testing. After a 3-week interval, 20 participants from the initial group were randomly selected for a retest to assess the test-retest reliability of the scale.

The KAP Scale for informal caregivers of PI patients consists of 3 dimensions with 19 items. The overall internal consistency (Cronbach's α) of the scale was 0.916. The item-level content validity index (I-CVI) ranged from 0.826 to 1.000, and the scale level-content validity index/average (S-CVI/Ave) was 0.94. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 3 common factors, accounting for 64.643% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fit the data well, with χ²/df=2.54, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)=0.085, comparative fit index (CFI)=0.920, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR)=0.059.

The KAP scale for informal caregivers of PI patients demonstrates good reliability and validity and can be used to assess the KAP levels of informal caregivers regarding PI.