Background: Given the high prevalence of eye disorders in intensive care units, evaluating critical care nurses' competence in providing standard eye care is a matter of utmost importance. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no valid questionnaire for measuring nurses' competence to undertake eye care.
Aims: The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a questionnaire on nurses' clinical competence in providing eye care to patients hospitalized in intensive care units.
Design: This was a psychometric study.
Methods: We initially performed a literature review and developed a 38-item questionnaire consisting of knowledge, attitude and practice domains. We invited a panel of experts and a group of critical care nurses to assess the content and face validity of the questionnaire. Thereafter, we evaluated its construct validity by using the exploratory factor analysis and the known-groups comparison technique. Moreover, the test-retest and the internal consistency evaluation techniques were used for assessing the reliability of the questionnaire.
Results: Totally, 35 items remained in the final version of the questionnaire. Based on the results of the exploratory factor analysis, we categorized the items of the questionnaire into three factors. The Cronbach's alpha for the attitude and the practice domains as well as the Kuder-Richardson 20 for the knowledge domain showed satisfactory internal consistency. The Cronbach's alpha for the whole questionnaire also was 0·83.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the nurses' clinical competence in eye care questionnaire has a good factor structure and an acceptable reliability.
Relevance to clinical practice: A complication of sedation and coma is that some patients are unable to maintain effective eyelid closure. These patients present a higher risk of eye complications. Development of tools for evaluating nurses' competence in providing standard eye care is a fundamental prerequisite for improving the quality of eye care.
Keywords: Clinical competence; Critical care nurse; Eye care; Intensive care unit; Psychometric evaluation.
© 2015 British Association of Critical Care Nurses.