Developing an ethical approach evaluation scale for psychiatric patients

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to develop a scale to evaluate the ethical approaches of health professionals working in psychiatry units toward psychiatric patients and to conduct a validity–reliability study for this scale.
METHODS: The research data that was planned methodologically were collected from 316 nurses working in four different regional psychiatric hospitals between February 2020 and February 2021. While collecting research data, “Descriptive Information Form” and the “Ethical Approach Toward Psychiatric Patients Evaluation Scale” were used. The draft scale, consisting of 48 items, took its final form consisting of 27 items as a result of the required validity and reliability studies. In the development process of the scale, the Lawshe technique, explanatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, test-retest reliability, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient, and item-total correlation analyzes were performed.
RESULTS: As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, the scale developed by the researchers based on the relevant literature took its final form with four subdimensions of authoritarian, protective–altruistic, normative, and social distance. It was determined that the model data fit of the tested data was quite high based on the results of the confirmatory factor analysis (GFI=0.96, AGFI=0.95, RMSEA=0.068, SRMR=0.071, and chi-square/df=775.06/316=2.452). Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of the Ethical Approach Toward Psychiatric Patients Evaluation Scale were as follows: αau-=0.84, αprotective-altruistic=0.74, αnormative=0.76, αsocial distance=0.70, and αEAPPES=0.88. The estimated test-retest reliability thoritarian coefficients for the whole scale and its subdimensions were as follows: rEAPPES=0.93 rauthoritarian=0.94, rprotective-altruistic=0.79, rnormative=0.83, and rsocial distance=0.72.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: As a result of these data, it was determined that the “Ethical Approach Toward Psychiatric Patients Evaluation Scale” is a valid and reliable scale.