Objectives: To provide appropriate palliative care, nurses should have appropriate level of self-efficacy in palliative care, but the levels among nurses were low. To improve the levels effectively, self-efficacy in palliative care should be assessed using reliable and valid instruments. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Self-Efficacy in Palliative Care Scale in Korean nurses.
Methods: In this cross-sectional, observational study, 272 nurses (mean age: 30 years) were enrolled from 6 university-affiliated medical centers or community hospitals in South Korea. Data on self-efficacy and demographic characteristics were collected. Validity was assessed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (SPSS and Mplus). Reliability and homogeneity were assessed by Cronbach's alpha and item analyses (SPSS), respectively.
Results: The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the 4-factor structure (communication, assessment and symptom management, psychosocial and spiritual management of patient and family, and multiprofessional teamworking) with factor loadings >.60 and with good model fit: root mean square error of approximation =.07, Tucker-Lewis index =.94, comparative fit index =.95, and standardized root mean square residual =.04. Cronbach's alphas for the total scale and each of the subscales ranged from .883 to .965. The corrected item-total correlation coefficients of all items ranged from .61 to .90.
Significance of results: The findings of this study supported the reliability and validity of this instrument among Korean nurses. This instrument can be used to assess nurses' self-efficacy in palliative care and to test intervention effects on it.
Keywords: Nurses; Palliative care; Self-efficacy; psychometrics.