A cross‐validation study of the incident‐reporting attitude scale for staff in long‐term care facilities—A cross‐sectional study

Aims and objectives To test the construct and concurrent validity and reliability of the incident‐reporting attitude scale used for staff in long‐term care facilities (IRA‐LTC) by the two‐phase cross‐validation method. Background Lack of accurate measurement on incident‐reporting attitude might hinder improvements of safety practice in long‐term care facilities. Design/Methods A two‐phase cross‐sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in Taiwan. A fixed proportion of long‐term care facilities were randomly selected that included 20 and 15 long‐term care facilities at phases one and two separately. Nursing and administrative staffs in these facilities were recruited at the first phase (N = 207) for testing the validity and reliability of the newly developed scale and for cross‐validation of the scale at the second phase (N = 251). The scale of IRA‐LTC was a self‐developed structured questionnaire consisting of 31 items. The data were analysed using spss for Windows 20.0 and AMOS 24.0. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, Cronbach's α, exploratory and confirmatory factory analysis were carried to examine the homogeneity of items, reliability, construct and concurrent validity. The STROBE checklist was adhered (See Appendix S1). Results The IRA‐LTC scale comprised two dimensions: “cognition and intention to report” and “barriers to report.” The two‐factor structure explained 60.20%–61.89% of the total variance at two phases. Validation of the initial factorial model gained at the first phase was satisfactorily supported at the second phase. Concurrent validity of the IRA‐LTC scale was satisfied. Cronbach's α for the scale and subscales was 0.94–0.97. Conclusions This IRA‐LTC scale is valid and reliable and can be recommended to evaluate the incident‐reporting attitude among all kinds of staff in long‐term care facilities. Relevance to clinical practice Positive incident‐reporting attitude can lead to positive incident‐reporting behaviour. Using the IRA‐LTC scale for assessing staff's incident‐reporting attitude is recommended as the first step to enhance staff's safety performance in long‐term care facilities.