Personal and technological skills to coach people with noncommunicable diseases: development and validation of a scale for nursing students

BACKGROUND: Current international policies converge to the need of empowering patients and families in becoming more autonomous in the self-caring and management of their noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Given their professional scope, nurses are the most well-positioned health professionals to answer this societal challenge. In the literature, health coaching and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) emerge as two still under-used contributions to nursing practice in this regard. Given the lack of instruments and research developed so far in the use of health coaching and ICTs during nurses training, we aim to develop a scale that explores nursing students’ perceptions regarding their coaching skills of people with NCDs and the potential role of ICTs in this domain. METHODS: After a comprehensive literature review, an initial items list (n = 39) was delineated and discussed by a panel of international experts. After conceptual and structural consensus, the pre-validated version of the Personal and Technological Skills to coach people with noncommunicable diseases scale (PTSC-NCD scale) was created. Then, the pre-validated PTSC-NCD scale was translated to Portuguese, Finnish, Flemish and Slovenian following Beaton and colleagues’ recommendations, and applied to undergraduate nursing students in five European universities. Principal component analysis and reliability analysis were performed in each country through the statistical program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 22.0). All ethical assumptions were complied with throughout this study. RESULTS: 874 nursing students enrolled in the study, predominantly female (71.1%) and with a mean age of 22.4 years (SD = 5.49). After data analysis across international settings, three dimensions emerged: Coaching Centred Personal Skills (F1); Digital Technology Improving Patient-Centred Care (F2); and Digital Technology Improving Relational Skills (F3). All the dimensions showed good reliability (Cronbach's alpha >.80). CONCLUSION: The PTSC-NCD scale evidence good validity and reliability indicators across different international settings.