The aim of this study was to develop the Nurse Competency Assessment Scale in Disaster Management (NCASDM) and to conduct psychometric evaluation.

It is a scale development study. Research data were collected between January and May 2023. In the sample of the study, as stated in the literature, it was aimed to reach at least 10 times the number of draft scale items (n = 600). The psychometric properties of the scale were tested with 697 nurses working in four different hospitals. A three-stage structure was used in the analysis of data: (1) creating the item pool, (2) preliminary evaluation of items, (3) refining of the scale and evaluation of psychometric properties. The content validity, construct validity, internal consistency, and temporal stability of the scale were evaluated according to the scale development guidelines.

The scale items were obtained from online, semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews conducted with nurses who experienced disasters or worked in disasters. The content validity index of the scale was found to be 0.95. According to the exploratory factor analysis, it was found that the scale consisted of 43 items and two subscales, and the subscales explained 79.094% of the total variance. The compliance indices obtained as a result of confirmatory factor analysis were acceptable and at good levels.

The NCASDM was found to be a psychometrically valid and reliable measurement tool. It can be used to evaluate the competency of nurses related to disaster management.

This methodological study aimed to establish the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Information Concealment Scale for Caregivers of palliative care patients.

The study was conducted between January and June 2023 with 155 caregivers who cared for patients hospitalized in the palliative care units of 2 hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed for validity analysis. Cronbach’s α, item-total correlation, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and Pearson correlation analysis were used for reliability analysis.

Of the participants, 54.2% were female and 69% were married. The mean age was 37.96 ± 12.25 years. According to the exploratory factor analysis, the scale consisted of 3 subscales and 15 items. The first subscale of the scale was expressed as “misrepresentation of the disease’; the second subscale was defined as “concealment of information”; the third subscale was defined as “misrepresentation of the real situation.” As a result of the modifications made in confirmatory factor analysis, the goodness-of-fit values were as follows: CMIN/DF(X2/Sd) = 175.16/815 = 2.16; GFI = 0.88; CFI = 0.91; RMSEA = 0.079; RMR = .070; NFI = 0.90. The Cronbach’s α values of the subscale were between 0.79 and 0.87. ICC values were between 0.90 and 0.95 at a confidence interval of 95%. A positive correlation was determined between the subscales.

It was determined that the Turkish version of the Information Concealment Scale was a valid and reliable tool for caregivers.

Existing self-rated depression measurement tools possess a range of psychometric drawbacks, spanning a range of validity and reliability constructs. The gold standard self-rated depression scales contain several variable items that are often non-specific, require respondents to have a certain level of language understanding and limited scoring options resulting in low sensitivity. The Maudsley three-item visual analogue scale (M3VAS) was developed to address these challenges.

This study aimed to translate the M3VAS into Chinese and test its reliability and validity.

First, both M3VAS scales (assessing current severity and change in severity) were translated according to a standardised protocol to finalise the Chinese version. Reliability and validity were then examined among 550 young people with moderate to severe depression (patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score ≥15) in a cross-sectional opportunistic questionnaire survey.

The content validity of each item (six items, across both scales) ranged from 0.83 to 1.00. Exploratory factor analysis denoted a total of two common factors, with a variance contribution rate of 64.34%. The total score correlated positively with the PHQ-9 total score (r = 0.241, P < 0.01). The Chinese version of the M3VAS had good reliability and validity values, and the confirmatory factor model fit well.

The psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the M3VAS suggest that this scale can feasibly evaluate depression among young people in China.

Despite the growing interest in the prevalence and consequences of loneliness, the way it is measured still raises a number of questions. In particular, few studies have directly compared the psychometric properties of very short measures of loneliness to standard measures.

We conducted a large epidemiological study of midwife students (n = 1742) and performed a head-to-head comparison of the psychometric properties of the standard (20 items) and short version (3 items) of the UCLA Loneliness Scales (UCLA-LS). All participants completed the UCLA-LS-20, UCLA-LS-3, as well as other measures of mental health, including anxiety and depression.

First, as predicted, we found that the two loneliness scales were strongly associated with each other. Second, when using the dimensional scores of the scales, we showed that the internal reliability, convergent-, discriminant-, and known-groups validities were high and of similar magnitude between the UCLA-LS-20 and the UCLA-LS-3. Third, when the scales were dichotomized, the results were more mixed. The sensitivity and/or specificity of the UCLA-LS-3 against the UCLA-LS-20 were systematically below acceptable thresholds, regardless of the dichotomizing process used. In addition, the prevalence of loneliness was strikingly variable as a function of the cut-offs used.

Overall, we showed that the UCLA-LS-3 provided an adequate dimensional measure of loneliness that is very similar to the UCLA-LS-20. On the other hand, we were able to highlight more marked differences between the scales when their scores were dichotomized, which has important consequences for studies estimating, for example, the prevalence of loneliness.

We determined the validity and reliability of the Spanish translation Sheffield Profile for Assessment and Referral for Care (SPARC-Sp) questionnaire to identify the palliative care (PC) needs of patients with chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in Colombia.

We developed a cross-sectional observational study of scale assessment in adults with the aim of determining the validity and reliability of the SPARC-Sp questionnaire to identify the PC needs of patients with NCDs receiving outpatient or inpatient care at the Hospital Universitario San Jose of Popayan – ESE, Colombia, from 2021 to 2022.

We applied a questionnaire consisting of demographic, clinical data, and SPARC-Sp to 507 participants. The constructed model explained 75% of the variance with an adequate fit according to the root mean square residual (0.03), the comparative fit index (0.98), and acceptable reliability (McDonald’s total omega 0.4–0.9). Opportunities for improvement are the reformulation and inclusion of particular words to improve the representativeness and clarity of the domains of communication and information, religious, and spiritual issues.

This research represents the first validation of SPARC in Spanish. SPARC-Sp is an instrument that allows initiating a conversation of the patient’s main needs through a systematic assessment of the patients’ main needs. Its psychometric validation demonstrated good fit and acceptable reliability.

Floods are the most frequent natural disasters with a significant share of their mortality. Preparedness is capable of decreasing the mortality of floods by at least 50%. This paper aims to present the psychometric properties of a scale developed to evaluate the behavior of preparedness to floods in Sudan and similar settings.

In this methodological scale development study, experts assessed the content validity of the items of the developed scale. Data were collected from key persons of 413 households living in neighborhoods affected by the 2018 floods in Kassala City in Sudan. A pre-tested questionnaire of sociodemographic data and the Flood Preparedness Behavior Scale (FPBS) were distributed to the participants’ houses and recollected. Construct validity of the scale was checked using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency of the scale was checked using Cronbach’s alpha. Test-retest reliability was assessed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Item analyses and tests of significance of the difference in the mean scores of the highest and lowest score groups were carried out to ensure discriminatory power of the scale items.

Experts agreed on the scale items. Construct validity of the scale was achieved using EFA by removing 34 items and retaining 25 items that were structured in three factors, named as: measures to be done before, during, and after a flood. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construct obtained by EFA. The loadings of the items on their factors in both EFA and CFA were all > 0.3 with significant associations and acceptable fit indices obtained from CFA. The three factors were found to be reliable in terms of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for all factors were > 0.7) and test-retest reliability coefficient. In item analysis, the corrected total item correlations for all the items were > 0.3, and significant differences in the means of the highest and lowest score groups indicated good item discrimination power.

The developed 25 items scale is an instrument which produces valid and reliable measures of preparedness behavior for floods in Sudan and similar settings.

We aimed to psychometrically evaluate and validate a Japanese version of the Social Functioning in Dementia scale (SF-DEM-J) and investigate changes in social function in people with dementia during the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic.

We interviewed people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia and their caregivers during June 2020–March 2021 to validate patient- and caregiver-rated SF-DEM-J and compared their scores at baseline (April 2020 to May 2020) and at 6–8 months (January 2021 to March 2021) during a time of tighter COVID-19 restrictions.

The neuropsychology clinic in the Department of Psychiatry at Osaka University Hospital and outpatient clinic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Daini Osaka Police Hospital, Japan.

103 dyads of patients and caregivers.

SF-DEM-J, Mini-Mental State Examination, Neuropsychiatric Inventory, UCLA Loneliness Scale, and Apathy Evaluation Scale.

The scale’s interrater reliability was excellent and test–retest reliability was substantial. Content validity was confirmed for the caregiver-rated SF-DEM-J, and convergent validity was moderate. Caregiver-rated SF-DEM-J was associated with apathy, irritability, loneliness, and cognitive impairment. The total score of caregiver-rated SF-DEM-J and the score of Section 2, “communication with others,” significantly improved at 6–8 months of follow-up.

The SF-DEM-J is acceptable as a measure of social function in MCI and mild dementia. Our results show that the social functioning of people with dementia, especially communicating with others, improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, probably as a result of adaptation to the restrictive life.