Patients'' Perceptions of Feeling Known by their Nurses Scale

The importance of the nurse-patient relationship to the overall well-being of the person has been explored by nurses. The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of patients'' perceptions of feeling known by their nurses. Development of the scale was guided by Newman''s Health as Expanding Consciousness (1994) and data from a qualitative descriptive study conducted in 2003 (Somerville). The four themes that emerged from the qualitative study were used to guide the development of the 85- item scale. This scale was exposed to a panel of nurse experts and was piloted with five patient participants to determine content validity, readability and understandability. The revised 77- item scale was then administered to 327 surgical inpatients. A sample size of 296 completed surveys was analyzed. A four-component solution was devised using Principal Components Analysis with Varimax rotation. This four-component solution accounted for 63.3% variance, with a total scale Cronbach''s alpha coefficient of 0.99.This process resulted in a reliable and valid 48 item PPFKN Scale with four components and a total scale Cronbach''s alpha coefficient of 0.98.