Development and Psychometrics of Spiritual Needs Assessment Scale of Patients with Cancer

Introduction: The diagnosis of cancer can cause considerable spiritual crisis for the patient, and it can affect on multiple dimensions of his of her life. Patients have specific spiritual needs after the diagnosis of Cancer. This study designed considering the absence of evidence for assessing the spiritual needs of patients with cancer in Iran, with the aim of development and psychometrics of Spiritual Needs Assessment Scale of Patients with Cancer . Methods & Materials: This study was performed with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. In qualitative part, 18 cancer patients that were referred to the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran were selected using purposive sampling method. Their spiritual needs emerged by directed content interviews, and later analyzed by content analysis. After the analysis the spiritual needs of patients emerged. Then the items of the scale were made. In the quantitative part, content validity, face validity, construct validity (exploratory factor analysis), convergent validity and internal consistency and re- testes of the scale were assessed. Results: the scale that consisted 93 items was developed by using the interviews. The content validity index in 54 items was more than 0/62. The content validity ratio of 43 items was more than 0/80. In addition, 10 patients assessed the scale items, Then 2 items were removed and the number of items reached 41. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the scale was a 5-factor scale. Finally the scale developed with 38 items. In order to determine the convergent validity, the spiritual needs questionnaire of Bussing et al was used. Initially, the questionnaire was translated and psychometrical characteristics were determined. Then, the correlation between scores of The Scale of spiritual needs of cancer patients with the score of spiritual needs questionnaire of Bussing and Koenig was reported 0/74 and P<0/001. Cronbach s alpha were determined for the whole scale 0/81, religious dimension 0/88, meaning and purpose 0/77, communication0/74 and support and independence0/67. The result of test re-test was 0.89. Conclusion: The spiritual needs scale in cancer patients can measure the multiple dimensions of spiritual needs, and also it has the needed validity and reliability.

کلیدواژه ها:

spiritual ، spiritual needs ، cancer ، cancer patients ، psychology ، scale development