Psychometric evaluation of the Persian version of the perception of conscience questionnaire in Iranian nurses

Seyed Alireza Hasani; Roghieh Nazari; Hooman Shahsavari; Tayeb Ramim; Kurosh Jodaki

doi:10.18502/jmehm.v16i16.14615

Seyed Alireza Hasani Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery Amol, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
Roghieh Nazari Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery Amol, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
Hooman Shahsavari Professor, Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing and Basic Sciences, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Tayeb Ramim PhD Candidate in Medical Informatics, Department of Health Information Management, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Kurosh Jodaki Assistant Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shohadaye Haft-e Tir Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v16i16.14615

Keywords: Conscience ; Ethics; Nurse; Psychometrics.

Abstract

Conscience is defined as the cornerstone of ethics and is considered a valuable asset. There is, however, little evidence about how Iranian nurses perceive conscience. The purpose of this study was to psychometrically evaluate the Persian version of the Perception of Conscience Questionnaire (PCQ) in Iranian nurses. In this cross-sectional and descriptive study, a psychometric evaluation of the PCQ was conducted on Iranian nurses in 2022. A total of 300 nurses participated in this study to validate the PCQ. At first, the initial translation and determination of face validity was done, and content validity was assessed using the Content Validity Index and Content Validity Ratio. Reliability was determined by intra-class correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

The construct validity of the PCQ was determined by exploratory factor analysis, which led to the extraction of five factors of warning signal, valuable asset, spiritual power, burden and conscience outcomes from the initial 14 factors of the questionnaire. Reliability of the whole questionnaire was calculated to be 0.80 using Cronbach's alpha. While an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.58 indicated average stability, the five-factor construct of the PCQ showed good validity and reliability. Therefore, our findings proved that this tool is suitable for assessing Iranian nurses’ perception of conscience.