Yea-Pyng Lin
Mennonite Christian Hospital, Taiwan
Title: The dignity in care scale for nurses in Taiwan
Biography
Biography: Yea-Pyng Lin
Abstract
Aim: To develop and psychometrically test an instrument to assess nurses’ skills in providing dignity in care for patients in clinical settings
Background: Maintaining patient dignity is an important aspect of nursing care. No instrument is currently available to measure skills that provide dignity in care.
Design: A cross-sectional, descriptive survey.
Methods: A survey questionnaire was developed to measure dignity in care for clinical nurses guided by individual interviews with 40 nurses, literature, and the authors’ clinical experiences. In 2013, a purposive sample of clinical nurses (n =610, response rate = 100%) completed the inventory. A 36-item Likert-type scale was analysed by descriptive statistics and factor analysis.
Results: Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin and Bartlett's sphericity tests showed that the sample met the criteria required for factor analysis, which identified six factors influencing dignity of care: communication skills, confidentiality of patient information, prompt response to patient needs, respect for patient’s autonomy, providing a safe environment, and protecting privacy of care. The reliability coefficient for the total scale was 0.93; alpha coefficients for the subscales ranged from 0.70 to 0.94. The scale had acceptable content and face validity.
Conclusions: This new scale was found to be a reliable and valid tool for assessing nurses’ abilities in providing dignity in care in the clinical setting. The questionnaire can be used to provide feedback to nurses regarding their skills in maintaining patient dignity. This instrument could be used to design nursing education programmes, which could help nurses enhance their practical skills.