Questionnaire on Nursing Competencies in Nutritional Care for Chronic Kidney Patients: Development and Validation

Area of Science:

• Nephrology Nursing
• Health Measurement
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Nutritional management is critical for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients.
• Malnutrition is often under-recognized in ESRD care due to nursing knowledge gaps.
• Assessing nurses' nutritional care competencies is essential for improving patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Nursing Education and Competencies in Nutrition for Patients with CKD in ESRD (NECN-ESRD) questionnaire.
• To assess nephrology nurses' competencies, attitudes, and practices in nutritional care.
• To provide a reliable tool for evaluating and enhancing nutritional support for ESRD patients.

Main Methods:

• Methodological and cross-sectional design adhering to COSMIN standards.
• Five phases: construct definition, item generation, expert review, pilot testing, and psychometric testing.
• Data collected from 405 Italian nephrology nurses; EFA and CFA used for analysis.

Main Results:

• EFA identified a four-factor structure (Recommendations, Attitudes, Practice, Advanced Competencies).
• CFA confirmed the structure with good fit indices (CFI=0.995, TLI=0.994, RMSEA=0.07).
• Excellent internal consistency (ω=0.89-0.96), perfect test-retest reliability (ICC=1.00), and supported equivalence across groups.

Conclusions:

• The NECN-ESRD questionnaire is a valid, reliable, and stable tool for assessing nurses' nutritional care competencies in ESRD.
• The tool can guide targeted educational interventions to improve clinical practice.
• Application of NECN-ESRD can enhance the quality of nutritional care for ESRD patients.