Psychometric Properties of an Instrument to Measure the Quality of Family-Centered Care in NICUs

Abstract

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the Digi Family-Centered Care-Parent Version (DigiFCC-P), which was developed to measure parents' perceptions of family-centered care (FCC) in NICUs.

Design: Cross-sectional psychometric study.

Setting: Twenty-three NICUs in 15 countries in Europe, Canada, and Australia.

Participants: Mothers (n = 565) and fathers (n = 406) of preterm infants hospitalized in NICUs.

Methods: Participants reported their perceptions of the quality of FCC during their infants' hospitalizations by answering one DigiFCC-P question delivered to their mobile phones every evening. Nine questions rotated in random order. Participants responded on a 7-point Likert scale. We evaluated the instrument's internal consistency, construct and concurrent validity, and sensitivity.

Results: The internal consistency of the DigiFCC-P was satisfactory; the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .74 (95% confidence interval [.71, .77]), and all the corrected item-total correlations were greater than .30. We identified that the items formed two factors, support from staff and the parent's active participation, and observed no strong item cross-loadings on the two factors. We discovered some items with weak interitem correlations, and the two factors explained 35.2% of the variance. Scores on the DigiFCC-P and Family-Centered Care Questionnaire were significantly correlated (r = .59, p < .001) and supported the convergent validity of the instrument. In addition, changes were discovered in the participants' ratings over time, which indicated that the instrument was sensitive to detect changes in their evaluations.

Conclusion: The psychometric testing of the DigiFCC-P provided initial support for the convergent validity and reliability of the instrument. The instrument was also sensitive in detecting changes in the evaluations of FCC over time. However, there is a need for further development of the content validity of the instrument.

Keywords: NICU; exploratory factor analysis; family-centered care; instrument assessment; psychometric properties; reliability; validity.