Development and psychometric validation of the Nurse-Patient Therapeutic Interaction Scale (NuPTIS)

Aim

To develop and validate the psychometric properties of the Nurse-Patient Therapeutic Interaction Scale (NuPTIS) for assessing nurses’ therapeutic communication competencies.

Background

Although therapeutic communication is essential to nursing care and patient outcomes, existing instruments often lack cultural relevance and fail to capture its multidimensional structure. This study addresses the absence of a validated tool for evaluating nurse-patient interactions in the Turkish clinical context.

Design

A methodological, cross-sectional study using an exploratory sequential design.

Methods

Item development was guided by literature review and expert input. Content validity was assessed by eight psychiatric nursing experts using the Davis method, yielding an overall Content Validity Index (CVI) of 0.975. The scale was then administered to 328 nurses from university and public hospitals in Türkiye. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine construct validity. Internal consistency was evaluated with Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations.

Results

The finalized 20-item NuPTIS comprises four dimensions: Emotional Support and Motivation, Empathic and Open Communication, Patient-Centered Care and Supportive Communication Process. These accounted for 68.72 % of total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated good model fit. The overall Cronbach’s alpha was 0.920, with subscale values between 0.724 and 0.860.

Conclusion

NuPTIS is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing therapeutic communication skills among clinical nurses. While promising, limitations include the use of self-report measures, regional sampling and absence of test-retest reliability or patient input.