English Version of the Evidence-Based Practice Competence Questionnaire: Validity Assessment Among Nursing Students

Validity describes an assessment’s successful function and results. A valid tool must be implemented to determine if the knowledge and skills demonstrated during an Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) course will transfer to their professional practice once students become licensed Registered Nurses. The Evidence Based Practice Competence Questionnaire (EBP-COQ) developed by Ruzafa-Martinez is a 25-item tool clustered to 3 subscales: attitudes (13 items) skills (6 items) and knowledge (6 items), specifically for nursing students which captures each of the EBP outcomes university level courses are intended to meet. Currently this tool is written in the Spanish language and has also been successfully translated into the Turkish language. Thus far, an English translated version has not been reported or validated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties (validities) and the ease of use of instruments among nursing students. In this study, the EBP-COQ tool was translated and validated into North American English. A total of 93 undergraduate nursing students in a university located in the metro-Denver area of Colorado participated in this study. The results indicated the tool had acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha for three subscale >0.70) and was brief (less than 10 minutes to complete) the tool was also valid (confirmed by face and content: CVI was 0.96 construct; the correlation coefficient between the items and the total scores were 0.33-0.66 and the exploratory factor analysis method generated 3 factors that accounted for 65.78% of variances); administration is feasible (completion rates 93.9%) of EBP-COQ for use with nursing students. Instrument translation process involves cultural equivalency of the original instrument. It can be a challenge to translate an instrument into another language, however, we conclude that the EBP-COQ tool appears to be valid and sensitive enough to evaluate the competency of EBP and could be used among nursing students as a standardized assessment tool. Further testing is needed to better evaluate the reliability of tool.