Design and Psychometrics of Measurement Tool of Health Needs in Patients with Chronic Back Ache

The necessity of valid, reliable and objective tools is one of the subjects that have always been emphasized in studies related to the health of individuals. However, it is believed that existing tools generally do not have the necessary credibility and validity and cannot correctly assess the health needs of patients with chronic back ache. This study aimed to design a valid and reliable tool for assessing the health needs of patients with chronic back ache. This is an exploratory sequential mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method research conducted in medical sciences clinics of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Shiraz in 2017. In the qualitative content analysis phase through interview with patients, their family carers, the treatment team in relation to these patients, the health needs of patients with chronic back ache were defined and then, based on the findings and with extensive review of the texts, the tool’s dimensions and items were designed. Then, in the quantitative phase of the psychometrics of tool, the content (quantitative and qualitative) validity and structural validity (factor analysis) were done by using different methods of formal (quantitative and qualitative) validity. Reliability was also calculated through internal consistency and stability. 29 people are the participants included patients with chronic back ache, family carers and specialists associated with the disease. The health needs of patients with chronic back ache were explained in four dimensions: education and information needs, spiritual / religious needs, socio-economic needs, and physical-psychological needs. Based on these four dimensions, 109 original items were designed. 91 items in the Item Impact section acquired the scores 1/5 and higher. In terms of content validity, 49 items received 0.49 and higher. The content validity index of the individual items was equal to one, and the content validity index of the entire tool, as S-CVI / Universal was 1 and S-CVI / Average, was 1 at this stage. The kappa coefficient of all the terms was equal to one. Construct validity was performed using exploratory factor analysis and four factors of education and information needs, socioeconomic needs, physical needs and psychological needs were explained. The internal consistency of the tool by calculating the total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.75, which was 0.73 in education and 0.72 in social/economic needs, 0.74 in physical needs and 0.72 in psychological needs. The test retest by intra-cluster correlation was equal to 0.988. The designed tool for the needs of chronic back ache patients has different dimensions and has a good validity and reliability. This tool can provide an appropriate assessment of the health needs of patients with chronic back ache and improve the quality of services provided to patients.

Keywords:

Health Needs , Patients , Chronic Back Ache , Questionnaire