Developing and psychometric testing of a questionnaire to assess the knowledge, attitude and Practice of paramedical staffs about nosocomial infections

Nosocomial infections increase costs, prolong recovery, cause disability, and death of patients. Adequate knowledge, attitude, and practice of staff play an important role in controlling nosocomial infections. The aim of this study was to design and test psychometer a questionnaire to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of paramedical staff about nosocomial infections.

The present study is a mixed method research with a confirmatory approach, which is conducted in 2019 in Tehran. The initial items of the questionnaire were designed based on previous studies and opinions of a team of specialists. Then, the face, content, and structural validity of the designed questionnaire was examined quantitatively. Finally, the reliability of the attitude and knowledge and evaluation of municipal performance items were measured by Cronbach’s alpha and a test-retest method, respectively.

The final questionnaire consisted of 45 questions. The content validity iIndex (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) for the questionnaires were obtained in the range of 0.8 to 1. The face validity of the questions was 3.35. In knowledge section, Richardsonchr('39')s coefficient was 0.81 and in attitude and practice sections, Cronbachchr('39')s alphas were 0.71 and 0.83, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficient obtained for knowledge component (r=0.91) for attitude (r=0.85) and performance (r=0.9). Cronbachchr('39')s alpha, Pearson correlation, and cconfirmatory factor analysis were in an acceptable level.

The designed questionnaire had good validity and reliability, which can be suggested to be used in measuring the knowledge, attitude and practice of paramedical staff about to nosocomial infections