Developing the questionnaire on the causes of aggressive behavior in patients with schizophrenia: nurses' attitudes

Objective To develop a questionnaire suitable for China's cultural background on nurses' attitudes towards the causes of aggressive behavior in patients with schizophrenia, and to test its reliability and validity. Methods By literature review, semi-structured interview and combining with the China's conditions, the draft of the questionnaire item pool was formed, which was evaluated by the experts. Then the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested by investigating 340 nurses. Results The effective questionnaires were 312 copies. The questionnaire included 4 dimensions and 29 items. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 4 factors, the total explained variance was 56.175%. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.909, and the dimensions' Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.812-0.896. The testretest reliability of the questionnaire was 0.897, and the dimensions' test-retest reliability was 0.742-0.886. The average of total questionnaire's content validity index was 0.968 and the average of the dimensions' content validity index was 0.943-0.978. Conclusions The questionnaire has good reliability and validity, which can be used to investigate nurses' attitudes towards the reasons of the aggressive behavior in patients with schizophrenia. Key words: Nurses; Schizophrenia; Questionnaires; Aggressive behaviors; Causes