LAUSR

BACKGROUND Caring relationships are important for developing a caring culture. It is important that care provider's relationships with patients, co-workers and managers are caring relationships. However, in the Slovene language, there is a lack of psychometrically sound instruments to measure these caring relationships. AIM To explore the psychometric properties of the Slovenian version of the Caring Factor Survey (CFS) for care providers, the care given by co-workers and managers as judged by the providers, by evaluating its content validity, face validity and internal consistency. METHODS In the process of our instrument, we used translation and back translation and validation based on experts' agreement. Content validity was quantified by the content validity index (CVI) and a modified Cohen's kappa index. Face validity was evaluated by ten nurses who reviewed the instruments. In the process of psychometric testing based on survey data, we used a cross-sectional research design with a convenience sample of 91 caregivers working in internal or surgical wards in two health care institutions. Cronbach's alpha and corrected item-total correlations were used to test internal consistency. RESULTS All items in all three versions of the CFS had a CVI score higher than 0.78 and excellent modified Cohen's kappa index, showing excellent content validity. The average content validity indices were 0.990, 0.975 and 0.963. The face validity was good with no major remarks given. Cronbach's alpha was 0.941, 0.962 and 0.970. The item-total correlations reached a criterion of 0.2 < r < 0.3 for all items. CONCLUSION All three versions of the CFS showed an acceptable content validity, face validity and internal consistency; however, due to some methodological shortcomings, results should be interpreted with caution. Further psychometric testing is needed.