Validity and Reliability of the Surgical Conscience Scale for Turkish Operating Room Nurses.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Medical Ethics
• Surgical Safety

Background:

• Surgical conscience is crucial for perioperative nursing, impacting patient safety and care quality.
• Nurses' moral responsibility to uphold surgical asepsis is central to perioperative practice.
• Validated cross-cultural tools for measuring surgical conscience are scarce.

Purpose of the Study:

• To adapt the Surgical Conscience Scale for Turkish-speaking operating room nurses.
• To evaluate the reliability and validity of the adapted scale in a Turkish context.
• To provide a tool for assessing and improving surgical conscience in perioperative settings.

Main Methods:

• Forward and backward translation for cultural adaptation.
• Expert content validation and pilot testing for clarity and appropriateness.
• Psychometric evaluation with 238 operating room nurses, including factor analysis and reliability testing.

Main Results:

• The Turkish version demonstrated strong construct validity and reliability (Cronbach's α = .840).
• Excellent temporal stability was confirmed (ICC = .930).
• A three-factor structure provided an acceptable to good model fit.

Conclusions:

• The Turkish Surgical Conscience Scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool.
• This instrument can support nursing research and perioperative education.
• It aids clinical quality improvement initiatives focused on ethical awareness and patient safety.