Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool© for Nursing Professionals in Germany

Background There are no suitable instruments to assess disaster preparedness among nursing professionals in Germany.

Aim This study aimed (1) to translate the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool^© (DPET^©) to German, (2) to adapt DPET for the nursing context in Germany, and (3) to perform psychometric evaluation of the adapted instrument.

Methods DPET measures disaster preparedness level (low to high) using 47 items in English. DPET^© was back-translated to German (DPET-GER) and 10 irrelevant items were removed based on feedback from experts during the adaptation process. A pretest of DPET-GER with 37 items was conducted with seven experts to assess its content validity index (CVI). Psychometric evaluation of DPET-GER was performed using data from an online survey of 317 nursing professionals. Item analysis, internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) and factor structure of DPET-GER were assessed using descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in software R.

Results DPET-GER has a low CVI of 0.52 and a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94). Five factors were extracted in EFA that explain 55% of variance in all 37 items. There were 5-12 items that loaded onto each factor with loadings of 0.3 or higher. Cronbach’s alpha for items loading onto each factor ranged from 0.69-0.90.

Conclusions DPET-GER has acceptable psychometric properties and could be used to assess disaster preparedness level among nursing professionals in Germany. Low content validity index indicates that further research is needed to define the construct of disaster preparedness.

Publication History

Article published online:
22 August 2023