Attitude towards Evidence-Based Nursing Questionnaire: development and psychometric testing in Spanish community nurses.

BACKGROUND

A readiness assessment for identifying and measuring variables that can facilitate evidence-based nursing (EBN) is important. Attitude towards EBN is one of its components. However, questionnaires that exclusively measure attitude to EBN do not exist in Spanish-speaking contexts.

AIM

This paper is a report of the development and psychometric testing of a Spanish-language assessment tool: the Evidence-Based Nursing Attitude Questionnaire (EBNAQ).

METHODS

The questionnaire was developed in three phases: item generation through a review of scientific literature and focus groups; item selection through an expert review; content and construct validity testing, and internal consistency reliability testing. The instrument was validated in terms of construct validity by a factorial analysis and content validity by grouping the items into the three categories of attitude: cognitive, affective and behavioural. Data were collected from May to November of 2008.

RESULTS

The questionnaire was validated in a sample of 219 Spanish community nurses, who had a mean age of 43.21 (SD 10.3) years, and 64.5% (141) were women. A total of 54.3% (121) had been working in the community for more than 10 years. The questionnaire consisted of 15 items grouped into the three factors that make up the concept of attitude. Cronbach's alpha was 0.853 for the entire questionnaire. The factor solution explained 54.70% of the variance.

CONCLUSIONS

The EBNAQ is brief, making it a user-friendly tool. It is the first Spanish-language questionnaire that exclusively measures attitude towards EBN in nurses who work in the community. The EBNAQ can be used efficiently in research and practice settings to better understand nurses' attitudes towards evidence-based practice.