Valid and reliable instruments are essential to responsible and accurate diagnosis, planning, and evaluation by professional nurses working independently or collaboratively with other healthcare professionals. The author provides an overview of the instrument development process and emphasizes the importance of measurement as an intrinsic part of the clinical decisionmaking process. Discussion focuses attention on the differences between an index and a scale, both of which are needed as part of assessment protocols. Some differences in strategies required for estimating validity and reliability for scales and indexes are highlighted.
ApgarV. (1953). A proposal for a new method for evaluation of the newborn infant. Anesthesia and Analgesia, 32, 360.
2.
AvantK. (1991). Paths to concept development in nursing diagnosis. Nursing Diagnosis, 2, 105–110.
3.
BlalockH. (1982). Conceptualization and measurement in the social sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
4.
CarpenitoL. (1992). Nursing diagnosis: Application to clinical practice (4th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.
5.
DavisG. (1992). The meaning of pain management: A concept analysis. Advances in Nursing Scienc, 15, 77–86.
6.
DavisG. (1994). Refinement of the Chronic Pain Experience Instrument. Unpublished manuscript.
7.
DavisG.AtwoodI. (1994). Development and testing of the pain management inventory. Unpublished manuscript.
8.
DeVellisR. (1991). Scale development: Theory and applications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
9.
FehringR. (1986). Validation: Validating diagnostic labels: Standardized methodology. In HurleyM. E. (Ed.), Classification of nursing diagnoses: Proceedings of the sixth conference. St. Louis: Mosby.
10.
FitzpatrickJ. (1991). Taxonomy II: Definitions and development. In Carroll-JohnsonR.M. (Ed.), Classification of nursing diagnoses: Proceedings of the ninth conference. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
11.
FrankenburgW. (1983). Infant and preschool developmental screening. In LevineM.CareyW.CrockerA.GrossR. (Eds.), Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics. Philadelphia: Saunders.
GordonM. (1982). Historical perspective: The national conference group for classification of nursing diagnoses (1978, 1980). In KimM. J.MoritzD. (Eds.), Classification of nursing diagnoses: Proceedings of the third and fourth national conferences. New York: McGraw-Hill.
GordonM.SweeneyM. (1979). Methodological problems and issues in identifying and standardizing nursing diagnoses. Advances in Nursing Science, 2, 1–15.
16.
HolmesT.RaheR. (1967). The social readjustment rating scale. Psychomatic Research, 11, 213–218.
17.
HornS.WilliamsonJ. (1977). Statistical methods for reliability and validity testing: An application to nominal group judgments in health care. Medical Care, 15, 922–928.
18.
HoskinsL.KerrM.FitzpatrickJ., et al. (1992). Axes: Focus of Taxonomy 11. Nursing Diagnosis, 3, 117–123.
19.
KatzS.AkpomC. (1976). A measure of primary sociobiological function. International Journal of Health Services, 6, 493–508.
20.
KerlingerF. (1986). Foundations of behavioral research (3d ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
21.
KerrM.HoskinsL.FitzpatrickJ., et al. (1992). Development of definitions for Taxonomy II. Nursing Diagnosis, 3, 65–71.
22.
MaasM.HardyM.CraftM. (1990). Some methodologic considerations in nursing diagnosis research. Nursing Diagnosis, 1, 24–30.
23.
North American Nursing Diagnosis Association. (1990). Taxonomy I-Revised 1990: With official diagnostic categories. St. Louis, MO: Author.
24.
NunnallyJ. (1978). Psychometric theory (2d ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
25.
WaltzC.StricklandOLenzE. (1991). Measurement in nursing research (2d ed.). Philadelphia: Davis.
26.
WashingtonCMossM (1988). Pragmatic aspects of establishing interrater reliability in research. Nursing Research, 37, 190–191.
