Pediatric Pain Management Knowledge Scale for Nursing Students: Assessment of the Psychometric Properties

INTRODUCTION: This study was designed to determine the psychometric properties of the scale developed to evaluate the pediatric pain management knowledge (PPMK) and skills of nursing students.
METHODS: It is a methodological study conducted to develop the PPMK Scale for nursing students. A 29-item scale was administered to a total of 343 nursing students, were 3rdyear -taking the pediatric nursing course and 4thyear -carrying out their internship training at a state university. The scale items were selected through item-total score correlation analysis, and the sensitivity and specificity of the scale was evaluated using ROC analysis.
RESULTS: The students’ mean age was 21.92±1.150 and 76.2% were female. As a result of explanatory factor analysis, the scale consisting of six subscales was found to explain 50.30% of the total variance. The fit indexes of confirmatory factor analysis were calculated as RMSEA 0.063, GFI 0.85, CFI 0.93, IFI 0.93, RFI 0.86, NFI 0.88 and TLI 0.92. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the entire scale was determined as 0.864. The correlations of the scale items with the scale total score ranged between 0.285 and 0.625.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In this study, it was determined that the PPMK Scale was a valid and reliable tool for nursing students. It is recommended that after the students’ knowledge level is determined using the current measurement tool for PPMK, nursing curriculum should be revised and enriched, and further studies should be conducted on this topic.