Assessing nurse–patient interactions from a caring perspective: report of the development and preliminary psychometric testing of the Caring Nurse–Patient Interactions Scale

While there is a large body of literature regarding caring in nursing and some measurement tools addressing the concept have been developed, limitations of existing instruments constrain theory-driven research on nurse–patient interactions. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Caring Nurse–Patient Interactions Scale in a sample of 332 nurses and nursing students. The tool intended to facilitate research on the links between caring and patient outcomes. A content validity approach involving 13 expert nurses resulted in a 70-item tool sub-divided into 10 nursing carative factors. Alpha coefficients between sub-scales varied from .73 to .91 and sub-scales inter-correlations ranged from .53 to .89. Pearson correlation coefficients ranged from −.02 to .32 between the sub-scales and social desirability suggesting low to moderate bias. Results of the contrasted group approach partially supported the hypotheses while all differences were in the expected direction. Results suggest that the scale has strong potential for use in research, clinical and educational settings.