Reliability and validity evaluation of the chinese version of the ethical sensitivity questionnaire for nursing students

BACKGROUND: Advances in technology and the expansion of nursing roles have led to complex ethical issues in nursing. Nursing students are the future clinical nursing workers and practitioners. The ethical sensitivity of nursing students is very important to the professional development of nursing students, which can strengthen the ethical cognition of nursing students, improve the ethical decision-making ability of nursing students, and is beneficial to the development of nursing students in the process of clinical practice and nursing education. However, there are no instruments to evaluate the ethical sensitivity of nursing students in China. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of the Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire for Nursing Students (ESQ-NS). METHODS: After obtaining the authorization of the author of the original scale, the study used the Brislin back-translation method for translation. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed to examine the underlying factor structure of the translated questionnaire. The Cronbach alpha coefficient, the test-retest reliability, and the corrected item-total correlation were calculated to verify the internal consistency of the scale. RESULTS: The Chinese version of ESQ-NS retained 13 items. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) extracts four common factors, and the cumulative variance contribution rate is 62.479%. The CFA reached the adaptive standard, and the discriminant validity of the scale was good. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale was 0.821, and 4 dimensions were between 0.708 and 0.738. The results of the test-retest showed that Pearson’s correlation coefficient of the overall ESQ-NS was 0.814. Corrected item-total correlation ranged from 0.337 to 0.542. CONCLUSIONS: The Chinese version of the ESQ-NS has good reliability and validity, which can be used to evaluate the level of ethical sensitivity of nursing students in China.