Development and evaluation of a scale for pneumoconiosis patients'cognitive ability to this disease

Objective To develop a measuring scale for pneumoconiosis patients'cognitive ability to this disease and test its reliability and validity.

Methods After consulting with specialists, a prime scale was designed based on the referring documents. Totally 173 pneumoconiosis patients were investigated by the scale with a target sampling at Shenzhen Prevention and Treatment Center for Occupational Diseases and Hunan Prevention and Treatment Center for Occupational Diseases. The reliability and validity of the scale was tested by Cronbach's α coefficient and factor analysis.

Results A scale for patients'cognitive ability to pneumoconiosis was developed, consisting of 4 one-level dimensions (such as basic knowledge of pneumoconiosis, knowledge of sports rehabilitation, knowledge of smoking cessation, treatment knowledge of pneumoconiosis), 15 two-level dimensions and 75 three-level items. Totally 168 questionnaires were gotten. Cronbach's α coefficient of full scale was 0.938, and the Cronbach's α coefficients of two-level dimensions were from 0.899 to 0.952, which indicated 83.351% of the total variation (contribution rate of accumulative variation).The entries' loading values were from 0.714 to 0.200.

Conclusion The scale for patients'cognitive ability to pneumoconiosis basically accorded with theoretical composition, and it is appropriate to evaluate pneumoconiosis patients or to be an investigation instrument in a cross-sectional study.