Development and validation of a questionnaire to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, behaviour and care preference of family members of Chinese older adults related to palliative care

AIM: To develop and validate a questionnaire on knowledge, attitude, behaviour and care preference of family members of Chinese older adults related to palliative care. DESIGN: A descriptive study design and STROBE checklist were applied in this research. METHODS: The theoretical framework of the questionnaire was knowledge–attitude–behaviour model. An additional dimension of palliative care preference of family members was set up in the questionnaire. Items were generated from a rapid review of international literature and interviews with 61 family members of the older adults living either in an aged care service organization or the community. The content validity was examined by five experts. A preliminary questionnaire with 69 items was then set up, and its psychometric property was assessed. RESULTS: A final version of questionnaire with 42 items under four dimensions was constructed. The content validity index of the overall questionnaire was 0.93 and of each item ranged 0.80–1.00. The factor loading of all items was higher than 0.50 as per exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis; the average variance extracted for each dimension was higher than 0.50; the composite reliability was higher than 0.90; and the absolute value of the correlation coefficient of each dimension was <0.50 and less than the square root of the average variance extracted. The Cronbach's alpha value and the split‐half reliability value of the overall questionnaire were 0.93 and 0.97, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This questionnaire has good validity and reliability, but needs further testing in multi‐centered settings.