Validação para a Língua Portuguesa da Escala de Funck et. al., “Barreiras à Utilização da Investigação”

Abstract

Introduction: Barriers to the use of research results have been frequently identified, aiming at overcoming them and choosing strategies to facilitate the utilization of scientific evidence in nursing practice. Nevertheless, the gap between nursing practice and
research outcomes persists as a problem for the nursing profession. Objective: translating for the Portuguese language, adapting culturally and evaluating psychometric properties of Funck, Champagne, Wiese and Tornquist’s (1991) Barriers to Research Utilization Scale. Participants and methods: The scale was translated and culturally adapted for Portuguese and applied to a sample of 375 nurses, randomly selected from a data base, without any inclusion criteria. The scale was tested for adequacy and comprehension, face and content validity and its psychometric properties, through Chronbach Alpha’s coefficient and exploratory and confirmatory analysis of main components. Outcomes: participants were mainly women with a mean age of 35,8 years old. The majority had a mean of 12,9 years of professional practice and 10,6 years on the same unit. They were mainly generalist graduate nurses. Of the 29 items of the scale, following the analysis of the main components, these were grouped in four dimensions: Organization characteristics (α de Cronbach =.86), Study dissemination (α de Cronbach =.90), Nurse characteristics (α de Cronbach =.74) and Research characteristics (α de Cronbach =.71). Discussion and Conclusion: Scale dimensions have a higher internal consistency than in the original scale, except for “research characteristics” that has a lower consistency. These values are similar to other studies. Main barriers to research utilization were “time at work is insufficient to implement new ideas”, as pointed out in other studies in the USA, Ireland, Canada and Sweden. The scale in its validated form for the Portuguese language, was easy to apply, with an acceptable internal consistency, that explains factors that influence research utilization in nursing. The use of the scale allows to identify nurses needs and establish strategies aimed at promoting nursing research.