Summary
Validation of an uncertainty of illness scale adapted to use with Spanish emergency department patients and their accompanying relatives or friends
Affiliation of the authors
DOI
Quote
Brito-Brito PR, García-Tesouro E, Fernández-Gutiérrez DA, García-Hernández AM, Fernández-Gutiérrez R, Burillo-Putze G. Validation of an uncertainty of illness scale adapted to use with Spanish emergency department patients and their accompanying relatives or friends. Emergencias. 2018;30:105-14
Summary
Objective.
To validate a Spanish adaptation of the Mishel Uncertainty of Illness Scale for use with emergency-department (ED) patients and their accompanying relatives or friends (the UIS–ED).
Methods.
We first developed a version of the questionnaire for Spanish ED situations. Next we assessed the content validity index for each of its items, revised it, and reassessed its face validity to produce a second version, which we then piloted in 20 hospital ED patients. A third revised version was then validated in a population of 320 adults (160 patients
and 160 accompanying persons) who attended the ED between November 2015 and September 2016. The 12-item UIS–ED (60 points) was administered by 2 nurses while the patients and accompanying persons were in the ED. We gathered sociodemographic and clinical data as well as the subjects’ perception about the information they were given.
Results.
The mean (SD) uncertainty score among patients was 29 (11) points. Accompanying persons had a mean score of 36 (13) points. Factorial analysis confirmed the instrument’s construct validity, finding that both dimensions of the original Mishel scale (complexity and ambiguity) were present in 6 items each. Factorial analysis explained
60% of the total variance in the patient version and 67% of the variance in the version for accompanying persons. Reliability statistics were good, with Cronbach’s α values ranging from 0.912 to 0.938. Split-half reliability statistics ranged from 0.901 to 0.933. Correlations were significant in the analysis of convergent validity.
Conclusion. The UIS–ED questionnaire may prove to be a simple, valid, and reliable way for assessing uncertainty in patients and their accompanying friends or relatives attending Spanish EDs.