Diseño y validación de una escala de actitudes de los profesionales asistenciales hacia la liberación del uso de sujeciones en personas dependientes

Abstract

Background. There are studies on the prevalence and use of restraints but not a measuring instrument to eliminate subjectivity in evaluation of their use in clinical practice and research in our environment. Objective. Design and validation of a scale of measurement of attitudes of health care professionals towards the use of physical and pharmacological restraints.   Methods. Descriptive and correlational study for scale validation. Following a literature review, we developed a list of items that were subjected to a validity analysis: validity of content through judges, validity of criterion through external variable contrast, and validity of construct using exploratory factor analysis. Reliability was analysed using the Cronbach alpha coefficient. Results . Two hundred and seventy-six people answered the questionnaire, 82.4% (224) women and 17.6% (48) men, average age 38.65 years. The 40 item scale provided a Cronbach alpha of 0.897. Four dimensions were obtained explaining 46.758% of the total variance. The factors were named: Autonomy (15.084% of the variance), safety (12.228%), environment (8.463%) and avoidance (6.062%). Except for the last one, all the subscales obtained an alpha superior to 0.717. There were differences due to the experience in Alzheimer care. Staff with experience score significantly lower in Factor 1 and Factor 3, and higher in Factor 2, but there is no difference in the overall computation. Moreover, by gender, women scored higher in Factor 1. Conclusions. This scale is a significant step forward in the study of the attitudes of health care professionals as it enquires into underlying causes.