The validity and reliability of an instrument to assess nursing competencies in spiritual care

Abstract

Aim: This study contributes to the development of a valid and reliable instrument, the spiritual care competence scale, as an instrument to assess nurses' competencies in providing spiritual care.

Background: Measuring these competencies and their development is important and the construction of a reliable and valid instrument is recommended in the literature.

Design: Survey.

Method: The participants were students from Bachelor-level nursing schools in the Netherlands (n = 197) participating in a cross-sectional study. The items in the instrument were hypothesised from a competency profile regarding spiritual care. Construct validity was evaluated by factor analysis and internal consistency was estimated with Cronbach's alpha and the average inter-item correlation. In addition, the test-retest reliability of the instrument was determined at a two-week interval between baseline and follow-up (n = 109).

Results: The spiritual care competence scale comprises six spiritual-care-related nursing competencies. These domains were labelled: 1 assessment and implementation of spiritual care (Cronbach's alpha 0.82) 2 professionalisation and improving the quality of spiritual care (Cronbach's alpha 0.82) 3 personal support and patient counseling (Cronbach's alpha 0.81) 4 referral to professionals (Cronbach's alpha 0.79) 5 attitude towards the patient's spirituality (Cronbach's alpha 0.56) 6 communication (Cronbach's alpha 0.71). These subscales showed good homogeneity with average inter-item correlations >0.25 and a good test-retest reliability.

Conclusion: This study conducted in a nursing-student population demonstrated valid and reliable scales for measuring spiritual care competencies. The psychometric quality of the instrument proved satisfactory. This study does have some methodological limitations that should be taken into account in any further development of the spiritual care competence scale.

Relevance to clinical practice: The spiritual care competence scale can be used to assess the areas in which nurses need to receive training in spiritual care and can be used to assess whether nurses have developed competencies in providing spiritual care.