ABSTRACT
Background: Life-threatening illnesses and subsequent hospitalization in the intensive care unit (ICU) often occur unexpectedly. In many cases, this event is devastating for families and may lead to emotional stress, anxiety, and fear. To offer comprehensive and high-quality nursing care, critical care nurses not only provide critical care to patients but also attend to the psychological and social needs of patients and their families.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI-P).
Methods: This was a cross-sectional methodological research study. Forward-backward translation was used to develop the instrument. The first version was pretested with 10 families to assess face validity. The main sample consisted of 720 family members of hospitalized patients, composed of 360 admitted to ICUs and 360 admitted to general wards of hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Participants were selected randomly to evaluate the instrument in terms of known-groups, construct, and convergent validities. The internal consistency of the translated instrument was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.
Results: A significant difference was found between the scores of participants with patients in ICUs and participants with patients in the general wards (p < .001). In agreement with the original instrument, five distinct components were extracted from the CCFNI-P, which accounted for more than 52% of the total variance. The correlation between the total score for the instrument and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory criterion was positive and significant (r = .23, p < .04). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the entire instrument was .89 and more than .70 for all dimensions.
Conclusions: This study confirmed the validity of the CCFNI-P in terms of face, construct, convergent, and known groups and showed acceptable internal consistency. The CCFNI-P is valid for investigating the needs of Iranians who have a family member hospitalized in an ICU.