Validity, reliability and psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Nurses' Cancer Pain Management...

The Nurses' Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale (NCPMCS) is a tool to explore nurses' competencies and subjective experiences in cancer pain management, and to help nurses understand their current shortcomings in cancer pain management in medical oncology departments. In the hypothesis that cancer pain is not a problem exclusively specific to the oncology context, we tested the psychometric characteristics of the scale on the general Italian nurses population.

A cross-sectional design was used in which a sample of nurses was enrolled from 16 hospital in Northern, Southern and Central Italy. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit Italian nurses who met the eligibility criteria completed the study for developing the Italian version of the Nurses' Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and construct validity was examined using exploratory factor analysis. Data collection took place in July 2024.

The sample involved 128 nurses who met the inclusion criteria. The sample was predominantly female (68%). The factor loads of the NCPMCS ranged between 0.81 and 0.92, and the t value was greater than 1.96 for all 14 items. On a 4-point scale for total competency, the mean score was 1.94 ±0.81. The multidimensional nature of pain (2.01 ±0.93) was the factor that showed the highest mean score, whereas the management of pain factor was the lowest (1.87 ±0.83). The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was 0.806 and ranged from 0.719 to 0.836. The results showed that the chi-square degree of freedom ratio was 2.662, the goodness-of-fit index was 0.854, the root mean square of approximate error was 0.037, the value-added fitting index was 0.876, the comparative fitting index was 0.928.

The scale is valid and reliable for the evaluation of nursing competencies in managing cancer pain even among nurses who do not work in medical oncology departments.