Development of an Occupational Therapy Self-checklist for Promoting Information Sharing (SPIS) : Validity of the SPIS among Occupational Therapists working in Geriatric Health Service Facilities in Japan

[Abstract] We developed the Self-checklist for Promoting Information Sharing (SPIS) for use in nursing care homes in Japan. The SPIS is a self-assessment tool for use by occupational therapists to identify factors that facilitate information sharing with care workers. The present study aims to investigate this tool by assessing its reliability and validity among occupational therapists working in geriatric health service facilities (excluding nursing care homes). We distributed a questionnaire survey to 400 occupational therapists working in these facilities in Japan, and we received 257 valid responses. Each question was primarily analyzed based on the item reaction theory, and our results suggest that all SPIS items were appropriate for scale configuration. Furthermore, the measurement accuracy of the SPIS was maintained when an occupational therapist could promote information sharing with average inclination towards information sharing and was highest when he or she could promote information sharing with somewhat below average inclination. Thus, the SPIS can be considered a reliable and valid scale that can be used in geriatric health service facilities.