Development and validation of evaluation tools of nursing students’ clinical pharmacology unit

INTRODUCTION The need for valid, reliable, and objective tools has always been emphasized in studies related to the clinical assessment of nursing students. The aims of this study were to develop and assess the validity and reliability of the tools used to evaluate the clinical pharmacology unit. METHODS This study was a methodological one, conducted in 2016. An item pool was developed based on the literature review and personal interviews with faculty members. The tool's validity was determined through assessment of face validity, content validity, and construct validity, using exploratory factor analysis on the data provided by 264 second- and third-semester nursing students of the Islamic Azad University of Babol University of Medical Sciences. Reliability was determined through internal and external consistency, using a Cronbach's coefficient of the correlation between classes. RESULTS Based on the exploratory factor analysis, all items with a special value of >1 were grouped into six factors: 1) professional behavior; 2) effective communication; 3) recognition of medical terminology; 4) nursing actions before administering medicine; 5) nursing actions while administering medicine; and 6) nursing actions after administering medicine. These factors explained 77% of the total variance of the concept of assessment of the clinical pharmacology unit. In this study, reliability was demonstrated by a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.96; the correlation coefficient between floors for the total tool was 0.91, ranging from 0.64 to 0.89 in its dimensions. CONCLUSION The evaluation tool of the clinical pharmacology unit has an acceptable construct validity and satisfactory reliability and validity. Therefore, it can be used to evaluate the clinical pharmacology unit in the nursing education system in Iran.