Stigma in lung cancer patients may be associated with various negative outcomes such as increased psychosocial symptoms, severity of physical symptoms, and may act as a barrier to medical help-seeking behavior. The Cataldo Lung Cancer Stigma Scale (CLCSS) is one of the most widely used instruments for assessing health-related stigma in lung cancer patients.

To determine the psychometric properties of the CLCSS in a Mexican sample of lung cancer patients.

A non-experimental, instrumental design was employed, using non-probabilistic sampling based on availability. The sample included 265 lung cancer patients. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess construct validity, and Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s Omega were used for internal consistency and test-retest reliability, respectively, through Pearson correlation coefficient.

The 17-item version yielded a model with 4 factors (stigma and shame, social isolation, discrimination, and smoking) explaining 50.74% of the variance, with adequate values of internal consistency and test-retest reliability.

The Mexican version of the CLCSS is culturally appropriate, brief, psychometrically valid, and reliable for assessing health-related stigma in Mexican lung cancer patients.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the psychometric properties of a palliative care self-efficacy instrument developed for intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) staff using Rasch analysis and assess the change in palliative care self-efficacy between 2 time points using Rasch analysis of stacked data.

Staff from 4 nonprofit IDD services organizations in a US Midwestern state (n = 98) answered 11 questions with Likert-style responses at baseline and 1-month follow-up post training. Rasch analysis was performed to examine rating scale structure, unidimensionality, local independence, overall model fit, person and item reliability and separation, targeting, individual item and personal fit, differential item functioning (DIF), and change in palliative care self-efficacy between 2 time points.

The rating scale structure improved when 5 response categories were collapsed to 3. With the revised 3 response categories, the instrument demonstrated good psychometric properties. Principal components analysis of Rasch residuals supported the assumption of unidimensionality. Model fit statistics indicated an excellent fit of the data to the Rasch model. The instrument demonstrated good person and item reliability and separation. Gender-related DIF was found in 1 item, and work tenure–related DIF in 3 items. Overall palliative care self-efficacy improved between 2 time points.

Rasch analysis allowed for a more thorough examination of this palliative care self-efficacy instrument than classical test theory and provided information on rating scale structure, targeting, DIF, and individual persons and items. These recommendations can improve this instrument for research and practical contexts.

This study aimed at assessing the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Spiritual Health Scale-Short Form (SHS-SF).

The methodological research was conducted with Turkish nursing students (n = 310). The sociodemographic question form and the SHS-SF were used as data collection instruments. The Content Validity Index, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were used for the validity of the scale, and Internal Consistency and Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient for its reliability.

The EFA revealed that five factors accounted for 66.49% of the variance. According to the CFA, the factor loadings for the 24-item scale ranged from 0.40 to 0.91. Goodness-of-fit indices were as follows: χ2/df = 2.39, RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.91, IFI = 0.92. The item-total correlation for the scale items ranged from 0.37 to 0.65. The alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.91.

It is important to identify the level of spiritual health of nurses and nursing students with a valid and reliable scale. The SHS-SF was found to be a reliable and valid scale for use in the Turkish language and culture. The scale can be used for evaluating spiritual health levels among Turkish nurses and nursing students. This will provide an opportunity for planning appropriate interventions to improve the spiritual health level of nurses and nursing students.

Sweden updated its legislation on universal free school meals in 2011 and nutrition was explicitly mentioned. The current study (i) describes cross-sectional changes in school lunch nutritional quality during the following eight years and (ii) examines if repeated self-auditing, using a fully automated, online tool (School Food Sweden), based on the implementation strategy of audit and feedback, was associated with improvements.

Both repeated cross-sectional and longitudinal design. Factors associated with meeting nutritional criteria were examined using variance weighted least squares regression and logistic regression.

Sweden.

Primary schools who self-selected to audit meal quality between March 2012 and July 2019.

Almost half of all (ca 4800) primary schools signed up to use the tool and 1500 audited nutritional quality at least once. Repeated cross-sectional analyses showed the proportion meeting the nutritional criteria increased significantly between 2012/13 (11 %) and 2018/19 (34 %). Longitudinally, each additional audit completed increased the odds of meeting the nutritional criteria by 1·30 (CI 1·20, 1·41), controlling for region and time elapsed since the legislative change. In 774 schools with repeat audits, both number of audits and frequency of accessing feedback predicted meeting the nutritional criteria (OR 2·02, CI 1·23, 3·31), even after adjusting for time since the legislative change and days elapsed since previous audit.

Both legislation and self-audit with automatic feedback appear effective in helping schools to improve school meal quality. Self-audit with feedback may be an effective complement to legislation, or a promising alternative in settings where regulation is not an option.

Emergency nurses play a major role in disaster relief in mainland China, but there is no valid instrument to measure the extent of their disaster preparedness. The Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool© is a reliable instrument to assess the disaster preparedness of nurse practitioners. The tool has been translated and validated in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, China and the United States of America.

This study aimed at translating and adapting the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool© (DPET) for emergency nurses in mainland China and determining its psychometric properties.

A total of 2 cross-sectional online surveys were conducted in the emergency departments of 26 public grade III-A hospitals in Guangdong, mainland China. In the first study, 633 emergency nurses were recruited from May to August, 2018. In the second study, 205 were recruited in April 2019.

The instrument was adapted through rigorous forward-backward translation, face validity, and pre-test processes. Exploratory factor and parallel analyses were used in the first study. Confirmatory factor analysis, internal consistency and split-half reliability were used in the second study.

Exploratory factor and parallel analyses extracted a 5-factor solution comprising of 34 items that accounted for 64.06% of the total variance. The fit indices indicated a good model fit. The reliability was good, as indicated by a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.97 and a split-half reliability coefficient of 0.97.

The mainland China version of the DPET (DPET-MC) was a reliable and valid instrument and can be used in practice.

This review aimed (i) to identify all positive psychology measures in use with family carers and (ii) to determine their psychometric properties.

Literature searches were made in Ovid MEDLINE, PsychINFO, and Web of Science. The identified measures were then subjected to analysis via an established quality appraisal tool.

Twenty-five instruments representing the positive psychology constructs of resilience, self-efficacy, and positive aspects to caregiving were found. Two reviewers independently evaluated the measures using the quality appraisal tool. The Gain in Alzheimer Care Instrument, the Resilience Scale, and the Caregiver Efficacy Scale were found to be the highest scoring measures within their respective constructs.

Although some robust instruments were identified, there were numerous examples of important psychometric properties not being evidenced in development papers. Future researchers and clinicians should administer evidence-based outcome measures with adequate psychometric properties representing positive and negative constructs to obtain a comprehensive picture of a person’s well-being.

Caring for a person with dementia is associated with poor mental, physical, and social health, which makes it important to consider how carers are best supported in their caring role to preserve both their and the person with dementia’s well-being. At present, a robust instrument to assess carers’ support needs does not exist. This study aimed to develop a self-reported questionnaire to assess the support needs of carers of people with dementia. The objectives were to: (1) generate items, (2) pilot test, and (3) field-test the questionnaire.

Development and field-testing of a new questionnaire.

Primary and secondary health and social care of informal carers and people with dementia in nine municipalities and one dementia clinic in a hospital in Denmark.

Eight experts, 12 carers, and 7 digital users participated in pilot testing. 301 carers participated in field-testing.

Items for inclusion were generated based on interviews and literature review. An iterative process of data collection was applied to establish face and content validity of the Dementia Carer Assessment of Support Needs Tool (DeCANT) using Content Validity Index among experts and cognitive interviews with carers. Field-testing of DeCANT among carers included using the 12-item Short Form Health Survey, the Barthel-20 Index, and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory.

Initially, an item pool of 63 items was generated, and pilot testing reduced this to 42 items. Subsequent field-testing resulted in a 25-item version of DeCANT, and confirmatory factor analysis of three hypothesized models demonstrated a marginally better fit to a four-factor model with fit indices of: χ2 = 775.170 (p < 0.001), root mean square error of approximation = 0.073, Comparative Fit Index = 0.946, the Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.938, and weighted root mean residual (WRMR) = 1.265.

DeCANT is a 25-item carer-reported questionnaire that can be used to help identify their support needs when caring for a person with dementia to enable supportive interventions and improve carers’ health and well-being.

Because a primary focus of Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) is the development of junior-level investigators into competent and successful research scientists, evaluation of their skills, mentoring experiences, and usefulness of COBRE services is paramount to the transition of the Center to a self-sustaining, collaborative, multidisciplinary research environment. A formative evaluation, focused on the processes of a COBRE, was undertaken and is presented here.

Two instruments, one for completion by junior investigators and one for completion by mentors, were developed for the purpose of evaluating this COBRE. Areas of inquiry were relationships between junior investigators and mentors, research self-efficacy, mentee progress, and satisfaction with the COBRE. All eight of the COBRE’s current junior investigators and six of their mentors completed the online questionnaires.

Junior investigators were very positive about mentors and vice versa. Junior investigators were least positive about their progress as academicians and most positive about their abilities to develop collaborations with other scholars/professionals. Mentors felt as though junior investigators could benefit most by increasing the number of publications they had generated.

Activities provided by the CardioPulmonary Vascular Biology (CPVB) COBRE were extremely positive. Junior investigators felt as though the scientific, academic, and professional development opportunities afforded by this COBRE were integral to their success as researchers; however they would like more assistance developing professional networks (i.e., serving on committees of professional societies). Leadership of the CPVB COBRE may consider expanding the role of their advisory committee to ensure these opportunities are provided.

To identify from the literature, and to critically evaluate, all validated instruments currently available to measure self-harming behaviour in adults.

Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Health and Psychosocial Instruments and Google scholar were searched, grey literature was sought and the reference lists of relevant articles were checked to identify instruments.

A total of seven validated instruments which met our inclusion criteria were identified and data were extracted regarding each instrument's format, administration method, psychometric properties and number of items and domains included. Considerable variation was observed in the overall quality of these instruments. Fourteen other instruments were identified which did not describe their psychometric properties or had not been published and were subsequently excluded from our review.

Although many instruments were identified in our search, only a small number had been validated with published psychometric properties. Of the identified instruments, the Suicide Attempt Self-Injury Interview (SASII) appears to be the most robust and comprehensive instrument currently available. Despite the absence of psychometric data, numerous other instruments have been used in published studies, including clinical trials.

Our results highlight the pressing need for a standardized, empirically validated and versatile measure of intentional self-harming behaviour for use in both clinical and research settings. The optimum characteristics of such an instrument are discussed.

Studies investigating indicators of recovery from schizophrenia yielded two concepts of recovery. The first is the reduction of psychiatric symptoms and functional disabilities (‘clinical recovery’), while the second describes the individual adaptation process to the threat posed to the individual sense of self by the disorder and its negative consequences (‘personal recovery’). Evidence suggests that both perceptions contribute substantially to the understanding of recovery and require specific assessment and therapy. While current reviews of measures of clinical recovery exist, measures of personal recovery have yet to be investigated. Considering the steadily growing literature on recovery, this article gives an update about existing measures assessing personal recovery.

A literature search for instruments was performed using Medline, Embase, PsycINFO&PSYNDEXPlus, ISI Web of Knowledge, and Cochrane Library. Inclusion criteria were: (1) quantitative self-report measures; (2) specifically developed for adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder or at least applied to individuals suffering from severe mental illness; (3) empirically tested psychometric properties and/or published in a peer-reviewed, English-language journal. Instruments were evaluated with regard to psychometric properties (validity and reliability) and issues of application (user and administrator friendliness, translations).

Thirteen instruments met the inclusion criteria. They were individually described and finally summarized in a table reflecting the pros and cons of each instrument. This may enable the reader to make an evidence-based choice for a questionnaire for a specific application.

The Recovery Assessment Scale is possibly the best currently available measure of personal recovery when all evaluation criteria are included. However, the ratings listed in the current paper depended on the availability of information and the quality of available reports of previous assessment of the measurement properties. Considering the significant amount of information lacking and inconsistent findings, further research on the reviewed measures is perhaps more important than the development of new measures of personal recovery.

Growing literature suggests that the sense of coherence (SOC) positively influences well-being in later life.

This study reports the assessment the following psychometric properties: distributional properties, construct, criterion and external-related validities, and reliability, of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OtLQ) in an cross-national population of older adults.

We recruited 1291 community-dwelling older adults aged between 75-102 years (M=83.9; SD=6.68). Convenience sampling was used to gather questionnaire data. The construct validity was asserted by confirmatory factor analysis, convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, criterion and external-related validities, as well as distributional properties and reliability were also tested.

Data gathered with the 29-items OtLQ scale showed overall good psychometric properties, in terms of distributional properties, construct, criterion and external-related validities, as well as reliability. Three factors were validated for the OtLQ scale: (a) comprehensibility; (b) manageability; and (c) meaningfulness.

We validated the 3-factor OtLQ scale, which produced valid and reliable data for a cross-national sample with older adults. Hence, it is an adequate instrument for assessing sense of coherence among older people in health care practice and program development contexts.

Delirium is often missed in older outpatients. Caregivers can give valuable information that might improve identification rates. The aim of this study was to develop a short and sensitive delirium caregiver questionnaire (DCQ) for triage of elderly outpatients with cognitive impairment by telephone.

The pilot questionnaire was administered to 112 caregivers of patients who were referred for dementia screening to our clinic for geriatric psychiatry, and the final DCQ to 234 other caregivers.

In phase I (2013–2014), we tested a pilot questionnaire with 17 items. Health professionals who established delirium diagnoses were blinded to the results. We then used the results and other information available at referral to construct the final DCQ with seven items. During phase II (2015–2016), we investigated the test accuracy of the final DCQ in a subsequent cohort. In both phases, the patients received a structured diagnostic workup. Time between referral and first visit was a secondary outcome.

The final DCQ consisted of the following items: emergency visit required, sleeping disorder, fluctuating course, hallucinations, suspicious thoughts, previous delirium, and recent discharge from hospital. DCQ results indicated that urgent intake was required in 85 of 234 patients. Sensitivity was 73.5% (95% CI: 58.9–85.1%) and specificity 73.5% (95% CI: 66.5–79.7%). The mean number of days to first visit dropped from 31.6 to 11.2 in delirious patients (p = 0.001).

Triage with the easy-to-use DCQ among patients referred for cognitive screening leads to earlier assessment and higher detection rates of delirium.