Nurses' perception of humanised care: Validation of the ECCOE-Es questionnaire.

Aims: To adapt and validate for use in Spain the ECCOE questionnaire for assessing nurse caring behaviours from the perspective of nurses; to apply the adapted questionnaire to a sample of hospital registered nurses in Spain and to examine the perceptions of humanised care behaviours.

Methods: Multi-centre cross-sectional study. Validity evidence based on the ECCOE_Es internal structure through confirmatory factor analysis and convergent and divergent validity in the relationships with moral sensitivity and burnout, respectively. Reliability was also examined through Cronbach's alpha and temporal stability with Pearson's correlation of test scores. Descriptive and comparative analysis of nurses' responses to the ECCOE_Es was performed.

Results: A total of 462 nurses' questionnaires were analysed. Temporal stability (r = 0,908) and internal consistency were adequate (α > 0,76 for the subscales and α = 0,96 for the total scale). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the structure of the original instrument with 7 subscales. ECCOE-Es were positively correlated with moral sensitivity (r = 0,454) and negatively correlated with burnout (r = -0,265). Humanism subscale was perceived as the most important, whereas items related to individualised care were less frequently endorsed.

Conclusions: ECCOE's Spanish adaptation has adequate psychometric properties, and its original properties and structure are confirmed as a suitable tool for assessing nurses' perceptions of humanised care. Overall, they perceived themselves as delivering humanised care, there was a scope for improvement in this respect.