Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric testing of the Evidence-Based Practice Mentoring Scale in Chinese nurses

Objectives Mentoring has been identified as a promising strategy for implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice (EBP) in healthcare organisation. However, no appropriate tools were specifically developed or cross-culturally adapted into Chinese context to assess nurse’s perceived EBP mentoring, impeding comprehensive evaluation of the effects of mentoring intervention studies. This study aimed to cross-cultural adapt the Evidence-Based Practice Mentoring (EBPM) scale into Mainland China and evaluate its psychometric properties, including validity and reliability. Design A comprehensive translation and adaptation process was adopted to achieve the Chinese version of the EBPM (C-EBPM) scale. It consists of four steps: (1) trilateral translation procedure, (2) cognitive interview, (3) psychometric testing and (4) cross-time confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Setting This study was conducted in four 3A-level hospitals located in Shaanxi and Zhejiang provinces, China, during two different data collection periods. Participants A total of 598 registered nurses participated in this study. Results After two rounds of the trilateral translation procedure, a 9-item version of the C-EBPM scale was generated. Ten registered nurses participated in cognitive interview understood the meaning of all items but the response options. All items had significant critical ratio values (t=15.866~20.584, p<0.001). The item-total correlations ranged from 0.865 to 0.940 (p<0.001). The item-level Content Validity Index and item-level Translation Validity Index were 1.000. Horn’s parallel analysis suggested that one factor should be extracted, which accounted for 84.656% of the total variance. Factor loadings extracted from principal axis factoring ranged from 0.862 to 0.942. Cronbach’s α, ordinal α, McDonald’s ω and Guttman split-half coefficient all exceeded 0.900. The one-factor CFA model provided an acceptable fit: χ ²/df=65.681/27<3, root mean square error of approximation=0.073 (90% CI 0.051~0.096) < 0.080, Comparative Fit Index=0.974 > 0.950, Tucker-Lewis Index=0.966 > 0.950, and standardised root mean square residual=0.026 < 0.080. Composite reliability was 0.93 (>0.70) and average variance extracted was 0.60 (>0.50). Conclusions The 9-item C-EBPM scale demonstrated robust reliability and validity and is suitable for assessing EBP mentoring among nurses.