Psychometric evaluation of the reliability and validity of the Literacy of Suicide Scale with Chinese nurses

Zheshu Xie¹Xing Liu¹Ying Fan²Juanjuan Lin¹Feirong Tan³Yumei Zhou^1*

• ¹Department of Nursing, Xiangyang No.1 People's Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Xiangyang, China
• ²School of Nursing, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
• ³Department of Pediatrics, Xiangyang No. 1 People's Hospital Affiliated to Hubei University of Medicine, Xiangyang, China

The aim of this study was to Sinicize the Literacy of Suicide Scale (LOSS) and to test the reliability and validity of the LOSS with Chinese nurses. Methods: After authorization was obtained from the original author, the LOSS was translated into C hinese and translated back into English in accordance with Brislin's translation principle. Eight exper ts were invited to evaluate the content validity of the scale, and the Chinese version of the LOSS was obtained. Moreover, the LOSS was used to evaluate the suicide literacy of 1000 nurses from Beijing and Hubei, Henan and Sichuan Provinces in China, and the reliability and validity of the scale were t ested.The Chinese version of the LOSS contains 26 items covering four dimensions: signs of suici de, risk factors for suicide, the cause/nature of suicide, and the treatment/prevention of suicide. The C ronbach's α coefficient for the LOSS was 0.933, and the Cronbach's α coefficients of the four dimensi ons were 0.832, 0.893, 0.898 and 0.827. The split-half reliability of the LOSS was 0.818, and the spli t-half reliabilities of the four dimensions were 0.835, 0.877, 0.890 and 0.819. The test-retest reliabilit y of the LOSS was 0.925, and the test-retest reliabilities of the four dimensions were 0.890, 0.885, 0. 892 and 0.904. The item-level content validity index (I-CVI) of the scale was 0.875~1.000, and the sc ale-level content validity index (S-CVI) was 0.947. Four common factors were extracted via explorat ory factor analysis, and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 60.233%. The results of the co nfirmatory factor analysis show that the model had a good fit.The Chinese version of the LOSS has good reliability and validity and is a suitable asse ssment tool for assessing nurses' suicide literacy in the Chinese cultural context.