RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The unauthorized releasing of confidential patient information is a serious problem worldwide. Nurses, the healthcare professionals who are in most frequent contact with patients, have access to a significant amount of confidential patient information and play a key role in protecting patient privacy. However, currently, there is no proper tool to measure the level to which clinical nurses protect the privacy of their patients in China. PURPOSE: To translate the patient privacy scale (PPS) into Chinese and to test the reliability and validity of this Chinese version. METHODS: The original scale was developed by Özturk, Bahcecik, and Özçelik (2014) to identify whether nurses protect or violate patient privacy in the workplace. This study used the "back translation" method to translate the scale. A total of 616 nurses in two tertiary hospitals in the Western region of China were enrolled to test the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity of the translated scale. RESULTS: The Cronbach's coefficients of the total scale and its 5 factors ranged from .84 to .94; the split half reliability was .91; the test-retest reliability was .82; and the content validity index was .95. Explanatory factor analysis revealed that the 5 factors explained 64.98% of the total variance. CONCLUSIONS: The Chinese version of the PPS is reliable and valid, and may be used to reliably assess the behaviors of nurses with regard to protecting the privacy of their patients. The scale may also be used to evaluate the effects of training on patient privacy protection.
