Development and Validation of a Patient Discharge Readiness Scale for Daytime Cataract Surgery (DRS-CAT)

Abstract

Purpose

To ensure the safety of patients discharged from the hospital, a nurse-assessed scale for outpatient cataract surgery patients was constructed to provide a special tool for cataract patients' discharge readiness evaluation.

Design

This is a methodological study.

Methods

The development of the tool was completed between 2021 and 2022. Based on the literature review and qualitative interviews, the initial entry pool of the discharge readiness scale was established. After consultation with Delphi experts, the preliminary scale was tested by 312 participants to screen items and test reliability and validity. The analysis included internal consistency, content validity, and construct validity. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observation studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist was used as the reporting guideline for this study.

Findings

The final Discharge Readiness Scale for Cataract surgery consists of 21 items in five dimensions: cognition of discharge readiness, personal status, mastery of health education knowledge, coping capacity, and social support. Five common factors were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis, and they explained 70.12% of the total variance. All of the indexes of the confirmatory factor analysis were within the theoretical allowable range. The Cronbach's α of the total scale was 0.903, and the scale-level content validity index/average variance extracted was 0.99.

Conclusions

The Discharge Readiness Scale for Cataract surgery, evaluated by nurses, has good reliability and validity and can be used to determine the discharge readiness of cataract patients undergoing day surgery.