“ONCOLOGY NURSES FATIGUE SCALE”: SCALE DEVELOPMENT

Fatigue is a common sign in health care providers, including oncology nurses
which affects quality of care. There is a lack of valid and reliable tool to measure fatigue in oncology
nurses. The present study aimed to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure fatigue in oncology
nurses.
Materials & Methods: In this methodological research, samples were oncology nurses who work at
selected hospitals in Tehran that were selected according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. After
reviewing literatures about fatigue and gathering developed scales for measuring any aspects of
fatigue, a 45-items fatigue scale was developed. Content Validity Index were assessed by 10 nurse
faculties and 9 oncology nurses who were expert in this area. After this stage, construct validity,
concurrent validity, internal consistency and stability was assessed via SPSS 16.
Result: A fatigue scale for oncology nurses with 21 items was developed. The factor analysis
revealed 3 factors. Correlation of the scale scores with scores of criterion scale was 0.793 (P<0.001).
Internal consistency of the scale including alpha coefficient and test-retest reliability with a 3-week
time interval were 0.821 and 0.877 respectively.
Conclusion: “Oncology Nurses Fatigue Scale” is a valid and reliable scale which can measure
various dimensions of fatigue in oncology nurses