title: The palliative care self-reported practices scale and the palliative care difficulties scale: reliability and validity of two scales evaluating self-reported practices and difficulties experienced in palliative care by health professionals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The development of palliative care educational programs is ongoing in Japan. To assess the effectiveness of educational programs for general nurses, it is necessary to develop scales for evaluating them.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aims of this study were to develop two scales to measure the effectiveness of palliative care educational programs and confirm the validity and reliability of the scales.
  
  
  METHODS
  A questionnaire survey was validated with a group of 940 nurses at two facilities. The response rate was 85% (n = 797). This study used psychometric methods such as factor analysis and intra-class correlation coefficients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We selected 18 items in 6 domains, including "dying-phase care," "patient- and family-centered care," "pain," "delirium," "dyspnea," and "communication" for the Palliative Care Self-reported Practices Scale (PCPS). For this scale, the intra-class correlation was 0.64 to 0.74 in each domain. For the Palliative Care Difficulties Scale (PDCS), we selected 15 items in 5 domains, including "communication in multidisciplinary teams," "communication with the patient and family," "expert support," "alleviation of symptoms," and "community coordination." For the PCDS, the intraclass correlation was 0.61 to 0.69 in each domain.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The validity and reliability of these scales were established. Therefore, the clarification of actual practices used and difficulties experienced will be possible using these scales.
authors.affiliation: Department of Adult Nursing/Palliative Care Nursing, School of Health Sciences and Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. yokonakazawa-tky@umin.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakazawa
authors.forename: Mitsunori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miyashita
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Megumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Umeda
authors.forename: Yasuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Oyagi
authors.forename: Toshie
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ogasawara
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003142:Communication; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires