Introduction
Nursing is a profession that is based on the concept of “valuing people” [
1], emerged from the needs of society, protects and develops health and has a caring feature since its existence [
2]. Nurses solve problems, think critically and determine care needs in line with the professional values of altruism, equality, aesthetics, freedom, human dignity, justice and truth [
3]. While providing nursing care, it is necessary not to move away from humanism, which advocates respect for people’s beliefs, values, attitudes, individuality and rights [
4]. Humanism in care; has been discussed by theorists such as Rogers, Paterson and Zderad, and is expressed as a nursing approach that provides common personality development in patients and nurses, improves the quality of care, improves the abilities and knowledge of caregivers, and supports their development [
1]. In the Humanistic Nursing Theory explained by Paterson and Zderad, the way to respond to human needs has been tried to be explained, and it was emphasized that each nurse and patient is a unique human being, and their perspectives are equally important [
5,
6]. It was reported that Rogers focuses on protecting health, preventing diseases, rehabilitating and providing humanistic care [
7].
Humanism, a philosophical stance emphasizing humanity, has attracted the attention of researchers as well as theorists, and it has been the subject of many nursing studies [
2,
6,
8‐
13]. França et al. [
8] state that the humanistic nursing approach is accepted as a lively dialogue and consists of an intersubjective existential action. Humanistic Practice Ability of Nursing (HPAN) provides an objective reflection of the subjective attitudes of nurses as a part of the human spirit [
12].
Wu and Volker [
6] examined the relationship of Paterson and Zderad’s Humanistic Nursing Theory with hospice and palliative care nursing; they stated that this approach is a unifying language in planning care and defining interventions. In another study, it was reported that the humanistic nursing approach applied to individuals with coronary heart disease helps to alleviate clinical symptoms, eliminate negative emotions, improve body dysfunction and increase life quality [
13]. In the result of Zamaniniya et al. [
11] examined the results of humanistic nursing for intensive care nurses; they were stated that humanistic approaches in care play an essential role in meeting not only the needs of patients but also the personal and professional needs of nurses. In the findings of the same study, it was reported that humanistic nursing has outputs such as personal development, self-actualization, self-worth, and protection of personal dignity. Even humanistic nursing practices increase the popularity of nurses among their colleagues, patients, family members of patients and nursing managers [
11]. In the case of ignoring humanistic nursing practices, conflicts are observed between nurses and patients [
12]. Improving humanistic nursing practices contributes to more realistic and human-centred nursing and improves patient satisfaction and prognosis by improving health. It can also reduce medical expenses [
14]. Moreover, HPAN is the primary indicator of quality in clinics and increases the quality-of-care nurses provide [
15]. HPAN scientifically develops the knowledge structure of nursing, enriches its theoretical system and supports its development. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate humanistic practice abilities in nurses.
Zhang et al. [
12] developed the Humanistic Practice Ability of Nursing (HPAN) Scale is a mature and straightforward measurement tool that evaluates the complex structure of HPAN. This scale involves communication, psychological adaptation, ethical and legal practices, nursing aesthetics and practical care ability in nursing. The model on which they work contains the internalization process of humanistic nursing, which plays a bridge role in enabling the research of communication ability [
8] and other sub-abilities in nursing. Each sub-ability is closely related to the quality of nursing. These five dimensions of the HPAN scale affect each other and act together. Maintaining coordination among these five sub-abilities is necessary to improve HPAN. In short, HPAN can develop nursing practices with a holistic and systematic perspective when these sub-abilities are taken into account. However, there needed to be a more valid and reliable measurement tool to evaluate nurses’ humanistic practice abilities in Turkey objectively. Yanmış et al. [
16] tested the validity and reliability of the HPAN scale on Turkish nurses. However, when the results of this study are examined, it is seen that there are methodological problems in the process of evaluating the validity and reliability. The translation process from English to Turkish was carried out to ensure the language validity of the HPAN scale. However, Zhang et al. [
12] developed a scale for Chinese-speaking nurses. In the studies of adapting the measurement tools from one language to another, translation and adaptation to the target language should be carried out through the form in the language in which the original data were collected [
17,
18]. Ensuring language validity is the most crucial indicator of intelligibility and applicability in the target population in scale adaptation studies [
17,
18]. Therefore, this study aimed to retest the psycholinguistic features, language, and construct validity of the HPAN scale and to examine it according to nurses’ demographic characteristics. In this study, in addition to the study of Yanmış et al. [
16], the concordance validity of the scale was also tested. In addition, the average score differences between demographic characteristics in the test creation process were also examined.
Main research questions:
1)
Is the Turkish version of the HPAN scale a valid and reliable measurement tool?
2)
Do the HPAN scale scores of nurses differ according to their education, working year, and professional satisfaction?
Discussion
The humanistic approach is at the core of nursing practices and constitutes the essence of care. The results of this study showed that the Turkish version of the HPAN scale was a valid and reliable measurement tool with its 29-item, 4-factor structure to evaluate nurses’ humanistic ability in care practices.
In the Turkish version of the HPAN scale, the CVA scores of the items were > .80, and the scale CVI > .90, as a result of the evaluation of 11 experts. Therefore, the scale showed excellent content validity [
17]. Later, when the EFA and CFA results were examined for construct validity, it was seen that the Turkish version of the HPAN scale had satisfactory validity. The EFA results of the scale included ‘ethics and legal application ability in care (Factor 1: items 12–15, 17–19, 21, 23, 24 and 27)’, ‘Nursing care practices and aesthetic ability (Factor 2: items 16, 20, 22, 25, 26, 28, 29)’, ‘psychological adjustment ability (Factor 3: items 6–11)’ and ‘nursing communication ability (Factor 4: items 1–5)’. This structure of the scale was different from the results of Zhang et al. [
12] and Yanmış et al. [
16] because they found the HPAN scale in five dimensions. This difference may be due to the cultural values of the sample in which the research was conducted. In the research of Zhang et al. [
12], it is seen that the items belonging to the ‘caring practical ability’ sub-dimension are included in Factor 1 (items 23, 24 and 27) and Factor 2 (items 25, 26, 28, 29). For this research sample, it can be said that care practice abilities are whole with aesthetic, legal and ethical practice abilities and do not separate from each other.
The fact that the variance explained in the multidimensional scale is > 40% indicates that the scale’s construct validity is strong [
17]. In this study, EFA results showed that the four-factor scale explained more than 61% of the total variance. In the research of Zhang et al. [
12] and Yanmış et al. [
16], it was observed that the number of items on the scale did not change in the current study, but it was gathered in four factors and had a different structure. Statisticians state that for an item to be included in a scale, the factor load must be at least 0.30 [
17,
26]. The EFA results showed that the factor loadings of the HPAN scale were similar to the factor loadings in the original scale. However, the results prove this four-factor Turkish structure is valid in the present sample since factor loads are ≥ 30.
The results of the CFA analysis, applied to evaluate the fit of the structure obtained as a result of EFA, showed that the factor structure of the HPAN scale was appropriate. The first model did not show an acceptable fit in this research. After adding error terms for the three item pairs in the final CFA model, the model fit indices were improved, and there was a clear causal relationship between items 10 and 11, items 12 and 13, and items 14 and 15. Therefore, a two-way relationship was established between these error terms. CFA results showed that the chi-square value divided by degrees of freedom is less than five, RMSEA and SRMR were less than 0.08, TLI, IFI, and CFI fit indices were more remarkable than 0.90, and GFI was 0.86. Furthermore, the standard regression coefficients of all items were revealed that it is more significant than 0.30 [
17]. Results showed that it is different in structure from the five-factor results of Zhang et al. [
12] and Yanmış et al. [
16]. However, according to the current research results, it has been proven that these four factors fit well as first-level indicators of the Turkish form of the scale and have a good factor structure for the current sample.
When convergent validity was examined, it was seen that there was a significant correlation between all score types of the HPAN scale. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation existed between the HPAN scale and TEQ and CCS scores. The results showed that the scale has convergent and discriminant [
17]. Yanmış et al. [
16] did not use these tests in their study, so the results could not be compared. However, Zhang et al. [
12] evaluated the convergent validity, and the results are in a way that supports each other. For this reason, it can be said that while the HPAN scale factors show features that may be related to empathy and compassion proficiency in nurses’ practices, they also capture structures that evaluate humanistic practice abilities.
Item-total score analysis shows to what extent the items in a scale are related to the scale or subscale and among themselves and whether they measure the variable to be measured [
17,
26]. The correlation in the item-total score analysis is expected to be positive and above 0.20 [
26]. When the item analysis results were evaluated, item-total correlations were acceptable. In addition, according to the results, when the item was deleted, it was observed that there was no change in the total Cronbach’s alpha value of the scale compared to Cronbach’s alpha value before the deletion process, and item inference was not made. When the studies of Zhang et al. [
12] and Yanmış et al. [
16] were analyzed, it was seen that the results were similar. Therefore, all 29 items were included in the scale.
In the split-half method used in this study, Cronbach’s alpha values of both halves were found to be > 0.70 [
17]. The two halves also had a strong and significant relationship; Spearman-Brown and Guttman Split-Half coefficients were > 0.70 [
17]. These results show that the scale has a high level of reliability and provides internal validity. However, Zhang et al. [
12] and Yanmış et al. [
16] did not use these tests in their study, so the results could not be compared.
It has been reported that there was a positive relationship between nurses’ education level and work experience and their nursing practices and care behaviours [
27]. In addition, when the relevant literature was examined, it was seen that the perception and implementation of care behaviours are affected by factors such as knowledge, education [
28] and the duration of working directly with patients [
29,
30]. In this study, nurses with a postgraduate education had higher HPAN abilities than those with a bachelor’s degree and those who have worked for 5.01 years or more than those who have been working for less support the literature. In addition, nurses’ professional satisfaction being ‘satisfied’ increases their HPAN ability compared to being ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’.
Limitations
The limitations of this research are:
-
The HPAN scale was a subjective measurement tool.
-
Due to regional constraints, participants’ cultural views and homogeneity are limited in this study.
-
The analysis was made on the same data since the data set had to be divided into two to apply EFA and CFA, and the sample size had to be increased.
-
Future studies on nurses from different regions are needed to re-evaluate the psychometric properties of the HPAN scale in different samples of various cultures.
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