| Objectives1.Exploring the health information needs of patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology;2.Developing a culturally appropriate Scale for measuring the health information needs of patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology(short for HINART Scale)and establishing the psychometric characteristics of this scale,aiming at providing evidence for the clinical information support of patients undergoing ART.Methods1.A qualitative study was conducted in the first phase(Dec.,2015-Feb.,2016).We recruited 15 patients undergoing ART to take part in our semi-structured interviews to deeper understand the connotation of health information needs of patients undergoing ART.Phenomenological analysis of the data was performed to refine the themes.2.The development and evaluation of the scale were implemented in the second phase(Mar.,2016-Dec.,2016).The item pool was established on the basis of literature review,qualitative interviews and the existing information needs assessment instruments.After assessing through the two rounds of Delphi expert consultation,making further selection,supplement and adjustment of the item pool,removing the unimportant or unrelated items,making appropriate merger of the similar items,and inviting 10 patients undergoing ART to read and screen the draft,to test the feasibility,forming the pre-test scale of health information needs of patients undergoing ART.According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria,622 patients were enrolled to complete the initial scale.A total of 342 ART patients were investigated by the initial questionnaires.The item analysis and exploratory factor analysis were used to further analyze and screen the items,forming the pre-test scale.The confirmatory factor analysis was performed in 280 ART patients,to examine the structural validity and form the formal scale.ResultsThe initial phase-from patients’ perspective deeper understanding the connotation of health information needs of patients undergoing ART.The information needs include: disease treatment,treatment guidance,treatment progress,physical function,medical support,social psychology.At the same time,the results of this study show that patients receiving ART experience a heavy psychological burden,heavy economic burden,urgent social supporting needs,a large sense of inner disease treatment experience.The second phase-forming the item pool and primary version of the scale and validating the reliability and validity of the formal version.1.We formed a 72 optional item pool.The scale was a Likert5-level scale,the higher the score,the higher level of health information needs of patients undergoing ART.2.With the method of pilot study and expert consultation,we acquired the pre-test version of HINART with 34-item.3.With the item screening,exploratory factor analysis(EFA),confirm factor analysis(CFA),we got the formal scale with 6-domain(disease treatment,treatment guidance,treatment progress,physical function,medical support,social psychology),29-item.4.The Scale-Content Validity Index(S-CVI)was 0.92,the Item-Content Validity Index(I-CVI)ranged from 0.86~0.97.The factor loading of disease treatment domain was 0.613~0.775;treatment guidance domain was 0.468~0.822;treatment progress domain was 0.491~0.804;physical function domain was 0.646~0.846;medical support domain was 0.602~0.857;social psychology domain was 0.534~0.761.5.In the general module,the reliability results showed that the total scale’s Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.951,the Cronbach’s α for six dimensions ranged from 0.816 to 0.881;the total scale’s Guttman Spilt-Half coefficient was 0.949,and the Guttman Spilt-Half coefficient varied from 0.819~0.878;the test-retest reliability was 0.943 for the whole scale,and 0.860~0.954 for the six dimensions.ConclusionsThe "Health Information Needs Scale for Assisted Reproductive Patients" has a certain stability,reliability and sensitivity that can be considered as a suitable tool for assessing the health information needs of ART patients. |
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