Validation of “The Parental Stressor Scale Infant Hospitalization modified, to Spanish” in a pediatric intensive care unit

Abstract

Introduction: Intensive care units are known as high-stress environments for family members, this can be higher when the patient is a son or daughter and the parents must face the disease along with everything that the hospital environment implies. The Parental Stressor Scale Infant Hospitalization (PSSIH) instrument is a tool used to measure stressors in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU), however, the scale is not validated in Chile. The objective of this study is to culturally validate and adapt the instrument “the modified Parental Stressor Scale Infant Hospitalization” in mothers/fathers of hospitalized children in the PICU of a University Hospital.

Method: Instrumental validation study. After translating and counter-translating the English version of the instrument, a group of 10 expert professionals evaluated the Spanish adaptation. Then, 10 parents of hospitalized children in the PICU evaluated the understanding of the instrument. The psychometric properties of the instrument were evaluated using exploratory factorial analysis and Cronbach’s alpha.

Results: The Chilean version of the “modified PSSIH” was applied to a sample of 221 parents, with minimal semantic modifications and the expert judges considered the instrument adequate, therefore, it was not necessary to delete any item. The 3-dimensional solution was chosen, which explained 48.89% of the total instrument variance. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.885, 0.902, and 0.703 respectively for each dimension.

Conclusion: The modified PSSIH has proved to be a reliable and valid instrument in a sample of Chilean children hospitalized in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of a university hospital. The name in Spanish of the scale is “Escala de Evaluación de Estresores Parentales en niños hospitalizados en Unidades de Cuidados Intensivos Pediátricos” (EEEP - UCIP).