Nurses' attitudes towards alcoholism: factor analysis of three commonly used scales.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the psychometric properties of three scales commonly used to measure attitudes and beliefs about alcoholism.


METHODS
Cross-sectional study using a systematic sample.


METHODS
Hospital São Paulo (a public general tertiary hospital) and the adjoining Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil.


METHODS
310 nurses and nursing teachers.


METHODS
The Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire, The Seaman Mannello Nurses' Attitudes Towards Alcohol and Alcoholism Scale and The Tolor-Tamarin Attitudes Towards Alcoholism Scale, which were combined into one self-administered questionnaire.


METHODS
The scales were re-grouped into their original formats and each underwent a principal components analysis with orthogonal rotation of factors.


RESULTS
Each scale was found to consist of three main factors. There was some degree of overlap in the nature of the factors that the scales measured but each scale also measured something unique.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this comparative analysis could be used as a basis for developing a new scale covering all the important attitudinal groups identified by this study.
Pillon
S
S
Department of Gastroenterology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Brazil. pillon@psiquiatria.epm.br
Laranjeira
R
R
Dunn
J
J
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D009726:Nurses; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires