title: Development and validation of the Geriatric In-hospital Nursing Care Questionnaire.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop a questionnaire, the Geriatric In-hospital Nursing Care Questionnaire (GerINCQ), to measure, in an integrated way, the care that older adults receive in the hospital and nurses' attitudes toward and perceptions about caring for older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaire development.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve university and teaching hospitals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirteen experienced geriatric nurses and three geriatricians from 12 hospitals evaluated an initial version of the questionnaire. Two hundred seventy-one nurses, primarily registered nurses from 11 geriatric, medical, and surgical departments in six hospitals, validated the final questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  Items from two published instruments were extracted for use in the questionnaire. Content validity was confirmed using the Delphi technique with an expert panel. Internal consistency was measured by calculating Cronbach alpha; intrarater reliability was measured using test-retest correlations and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs); differences between hospital departments were analyzed using analysis of variance. Sensitivity to detect before-and-after changes with implementation of a geriatric care program was determined using the Student t-test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Consensus was reached after three Delphi rounds. The GerINCQ is a self-administered questionnaire to be filled out by hospital nurses that comprises five subscales with 67 items. It has good content validity (each item content validity index >0.9) and good internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = 0.86). Intrarater reliability revealed high test-retest results (ICC = 0.87). The questionnaire detected significant differences between nurses in three types of hospital departments (medical, surgical, and geriatric (P < .01). The GerINCQ was sensitive to changes after an educational program (P < .02) and had a large effect size (0.5).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The GerINCQ is a reliable and valid tool and is sensitive to change over time. It is clinically relevant because it provides a quantitative measure of hospital nurses' geriatric practices, attitudes, and perceptions. Moreover, the GerINCQ is suitable for monitoring progress after implementation of geriatric improvement programs.
authors: Department of Geriatrics, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors: Anke
authors: A
authors: Persoon
authors: Franka C
authors: FC
authors: Bakker
authors: Hanneke
authors: H
authors: van der Wal-Huisman
authors: Marcel G M
authors: MG
authors: Olde Rikkert
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D032921:Consensus; D005260:Female; D005851:Geriatric Nursing; D006760:Hospitalization; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attitude; geriatric hospital health care; nursing; senior-friendly hospital; validation