PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR NEEDS OF FAMILY MEMBERS OF PATIENTS HOSPITALIZED IN CRITICAL UNITS, ABBREVIATED VERSION

Abstract

The admission of a patient to the Intensive Care Unit has an effect on its inner family circle, the access to information and an empathic treatment being some of the needs of the relatives of the patient in this unit. The short version of the Critical Care Family Needs Inventory (CCFNI) allows to evaluate the satisfaction of those needs by the relatives of the patients in this units and it is considered a useful tool to obtain an overview of this group. Objective: To describe the cultural adaptations and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the short version of the CCFNI in hospitalized patients’ relatives in Dr. Hernán Henríquez Aravena’s Hospital, Temuco, Chile. Method: This research uses a cross-sectional survey design. The tool was first culturally adapted and then applied to 77 relatives during the time span of five months, after a written consent was provided. Validity of the construct and reliability of the tool are determined. Results: Items 11 and 14 were excluded. The exploratory factorial analysis showed four components whose Alphas of Cronbach were 0.7; 0.7; 0.6 and 0.3. Conclusion:
The translation and adapted version applied must continue its psychometric study incorporating a bigger number of relatives of hospitalized patients to confirm the exclusion of items and to check its multidimensional structure. This instrument is a tool to value the needs of relatives of patients hospitalized in Critical Units.