Background: Measuring and evaluating patients' recovery, following intensive care, is essential for assessing their\nrecovery process. By using a questionnaire, which includes spiritual and existential aspects, possibilities for\nidentifying appropriate nursing care activities may be facilitated. The study describes the development and\nevaluation of a recovery questionnaire and its validity and reliability.\nMethods: A questionnaire consisting of 30 items on a 5-point Likert scale was completed by 169 patients (103 men,\n66 women), 18 years or older (m=69, SD 12.5) at 2, 6, 12 or 24 months following discharge from an ICU. An exploratory\nfactor analysis, including a principal component analysis with orthogonal varimax rotation, was conducted. Ten initial\nitems, with loadings below 0.40, were removed. The internal item/scale structure obtained in the principal component\nanalysis was tested in relation to convergent and discrimination validity with a multi-trait analysis. Items consistency\nand reliability were assessed by Cronbach's alpha and internal item consistency. Test of scale quality, the proportion of\nmissing values and respondents' scoring at maximum and minimum levels were also conducted.\nResults: A total of 20 items in six factors - forward looking, supporting relations, existential ruminations, revaluation of\nlife, physical and mental strength and need of social support were extracted with eigen values above one. Together,\nthey explained 75% of the variance. The half-scale criterion showed that the proportion of incomplete scale scores\nranged from 0% to 4.3%. When testing the scale's ability to differentiate between levels of the assessed concept, we\nfound that the observed range of scale scores covered the theoretical range. Substantial proportions of respondents,\nwho scored at the ceiling for forward looking and supporting relations and at floor for the need of social support, were\nfound. These findings should be further investigated.\nConclusion: The factor analysis, including discriminant validity and the mean value for the item correlations, was found\nto be excellent. The RAIN instrument could be used to assess recovery following intensive care. It could provide post-\nICU clinics and community/primary healthcare nurses with valuable information on which areas patients may need\nmore support.
Loading....