The Nurses' Attitudes Towards Patients With Non‐Suicidal Self‐Injury: Development and Preliminary Validation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new Farsi-language scale to measure nurses' attitudes toward patients with non-suicidal self-injury, aiming to improve care quality.

Contribution

A novel 22-item Farsi scale (NANSSI) was developed and validated for assessing nurses' attitudes toward non-suicidal self-injury patients.

Findings

The scale has four dimensions: negativism about care consequences, counseling approach, norm violation, and perceptions about self-injury.

The scale demonstrated good validity and reliability with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.75.

The tool is suitable for evaluating care quality for non-suicidal self-injury patients in Farsi-speaking contexts.

Abstract

Non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) is a public health problem throughout the world. Nurses are usually the first caregivers in the mental health team who deal with people with NSSI. Since the consequences of self‐injury are associated with its care and treatment, nurses' attitudes towards these people are an important issue. This study aimed to develop and test a scale to measure nurses' attitudes towards patients with non‐suicidal self‐injury in the Farsi language.

A methodological survey.

In this methodological study, to scale preparation, psychometric steps were performed on a questionnaire based on the results of a qualitative study and literature review. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted to identify the underlying structure of the scale.

The results of the psychometric evaluation showed that the scale included the 22‐item NANSSI in four dimensions, including negativism about the consequences of caring, adopting a counselling approach, violating caring norms, and perceptions about self‐injury. By Cronbach's alpha equal to 0.75, its reliability is estimated. This scale showed a good validity and reliability, which is applicable to evaluate quality of care for patients with non‐suicidal self‐injury.

No patient or public contribution.

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