Study Of The Development Of A Chinese Version Of Mishel Uncertainty In Illness Scale-Family Member Form And Its Application In Family Members Of CCU Patients

ObjectiveTo develop a Chinese version of Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale-Family Member Form (MUIS-FM) and evaluate its applicability in family members of CCU patients, and to provide a standardized measurement tool for understanding uncertainty in illness of the Chinese family members in the context of Chinese culture; To evaluate the level of uncertainty of family members in CCU,its related affected factors, and the level of anxiety and social support in family members of patients; To analyze the correlation between anxiety, social support and uncertainty in illness of family members in order to provide solid evidence for clinical staff to provide effective care about uncertainty in illness in the family members of the patients.Methods1A four-stepped process was adapted to develop the Chinese version of Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale-Family Member Form. To establish the scale’s validity and reliability, item analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis and reliability analysis were undertaken.2Family members of ICU patients were recruited to complete the Chinese version of MUIS-FM, State Anxiety Inventory and social support scale. The data is analyzed by SPSS16.0to do the describe analysis, correlation analysis, one-way anova analysis, t-tests.Results1The final scale consisted of four dimensions with25items; the exploratory factor analysis of the scale resulted in six principal factors and explained for60.20%variances and revealed that each item has moderate to strong loading on its corresponding factors except item7and item12; the four-factor model is good; the correlation coefficient between each item and its domain ranged from0.468to0.864(P<0.01); the correlation coefficient between MUIS-FM and SAI is0.584(P=0.000); the Cronbach’s a and split-half coefficient for the whole scale were0.923 and0.886respectively.2The level of uncertainty in illness of family members of patients in CCU was relatively high; the level of uncertainty can be affected by the days of hospitalization, the age, gender, the number of other relatives who had been hospitalized in CCU, the relationship with the patients and education of the family members; the higher the level of uncertainty of family members was, the higher the level of anxiety was; the dimension that lack of information was negatively correlated to social support and objective support.ConclusionsAn acceptable psychometric property of the Chinese version of MUIS-FM was indicated; the uncertainty in illness of family members of patients in CCU was affected by several factors in demographic data; nurses can understand the effects of social support system to uncertainty in illness of family members, and decrease the level of anxiety by decreasing the level of uncertainty.