Theoretical validity of the nursing attitude scale regarding the rights of children under intensive care

Abstract

Objective: build and validate the theoretical content of a nursing attitude scale regarding child rights in pediatric intensive care units. Method: methodological study describing the construction and theoretical validation of the scale through a bibliographical review, semantic analysis and content validation by experts/nurses, employing the content validity coefficient and the intraclass correlation coefficient. Results: the Nursing Attitude Scale regarding Rights of Children in Pediatric Intensive Care Units was validated by 15 nursing specialists in the child health field, distributed throughout Brazil’s five regions. It comprises 99 items, distributed among the cognitive, affective and behavioral components of attitudes. The content validity coefficients for each dimension were 0.91, 0.86 and 0.89, respectively, and the final intraclass correlation coefficient for the scale was r=0.76. Conclusion: the scale presented content validity evidence and the items addressed the attitudes of nurses when practicing care at pediatric intensive care units, which will enable the evaluation of the rights of hospitalized children.