Designing and Psychometric Testing of an Instrument to Assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Clinical Staff about Nosocomial Infections

Abstract

Background and purpose: Hospital infections are one of the major challenges that health systems are faced with, leading to economic, social, and psychological damages. Clinical staff play an important role in controlling nosocomial infections, so, this study was conducted to design a standard questionnaire to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of clinical staff about nosocomial infections. Materials and methods: A mixed method confirmatory study was performed to develop an instrument in Tehran, Iran 2019. The items of the questionnaire were extracted for clinical staff by searching electronic databases, including SID, Magiran, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The initial questionnaire was designed and its validity was assessed by 10 experts in hospital infection control. To assess construct validity, the questionnaire was completed by 180 clinical staff working in hospitals in Tehran. Cronbach's alpha and retest were used to assess the reliability of the scale. Results: The Content Validity Index and Content Validity Ratio for the questionnaires in three domains of awareness, attitude, and performance ranged 0.8-1. The face validity of the questions ranged 2.1-4.5. In Knowledge about nosocomial infection, Richardson's coefficient was 0.75 and Cronbach's alpha of attitude and practice were 0.71 and 0.82, respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient obtained in retest for knowledge, attitude, and performance were 0.91, 0.85, and 0.92, respectively. Three-factor confirmatory analysis showed that the questionnaire has a good fit. Conclusion: The questionnaire designed for clinical staff has good validity and reliability which is suggested as a valid questionnaire in future researches.

Keywords

• knowledge
• attitude
• practice
• nosocomial infections
• design
• psychometrics
• clinical staff