Objectives: To investigate the psychometric properties of the developed 21 item questionnaire to measure definitions, attitudes and management practices in relation to diarrhea during enteral nutrition (DAPonDEN).
Methods: Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis from a cross sectional study of 102 nurses aged 18 and over, conducted from December 2011 to February 2012 in Malaysia. Face and content validity of DAPonDEN were first evaluated by few expert panels and patients. For this study, adult nurses were recruited from the adult wards.
Results: In the final model, three items in DAPonDEN were dropped. In the exploratory factor analysis, five factors were extracted that explained a total of 55% of the variation in the remaining 18 items. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.723. For definition, there were two underlying factors: 'Key items in defining diarrhea' and 'non-key items in defining diarrhea'. For attitude there was a single factor. For practice, there were two underlying factors: 'enteral nutrition (EN) related' and 'awareness related'.
Conclusion: The items in each of the underlying dimensions seem to measure the respective concepts for definition, attitude and practices adequately. The 18-items DAPonDEN instrument can be a suitable education tool to be used in relation to diarrhea during EN.
Keywords: Attitude; Definition; Diarrhea; Enteral nutrition; Practices.
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