Development of the Family Nursing Practice Scale

This article describes the development and testing of the Family Nursing Practice Scale (FNPS). This self-report questionnaire is designed to measure perceived changes in family nursing practice including attitudes toward work-ing with families, critical appraisal of their family nursing practice and reci-procity in the nurse–family relationship. Categories were derived from a needs assessment, competence as effective application of knowledge and skill and theoretical foundations for family assessment and intervention. Psychometric testing (content, construct validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliabil-ity) was undertaken with 140 psychiatric nurses in Hong Kong. Practice appraisal and nurse–family relationships accounted for 56.4 % of the variance. Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were.88 and.73 for the two subscales, respectively, and.86 for the scale overall. Test-retest reliability ranged from.62 to.93 on the individual items. The results provide preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of the FNPS. The instrument provides quantitative and qualitative evaluation components