Stroke Coaching Scale-11 items: Construction and psychometric validation

Introduction

Patients who survive a stroke present difficulty in complying with secondary prevention. Therefore, new strategies, such as health coaching, are needed to evaluate these interventions in clinical practice.

Objective

To construct and validate the psychometric properties of a scale for evaluating health coaching in stroke patients.

Method

Observational study of the construction and validation of a Spanish assessment scale for health coaching in a prospective cohort of stroke patients. It was conducted in two phases: 1) construction and 2) validation of the scale. In the first phase, after evaluation by a group of experts, 11 items of the scale were constructed, with a Likert-type response option (0–10). In the second phase, validation and analysis of construct and reliability was carried out using the test-retest technique, with a difference of 3 weeks in a consecutive and prospective probability sample of 58 participants. In addition, a confirmatory factor analysis of the model was performed, and the following fit indices were obtained: comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) with a confidence interval (CI) of 95%.

Results

The pilot test applied to a sample of 14 subjects obtained good reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .806). In the retest the level of reliability was maintained (Cronbach's alpha = .813) and the intraclass correlation coefficient of all items showed reproducibility after three weeks from the first completion. The correlation between the dimensions was significant, although the correlation coefficient was not high. The following scale fit indices were also calculated: CFI = .933, TLI = .914 and RMSEA = .068 (95% CI.000–.119), which showed adequate values.

Conclusions

The Stroke Coaching Scale-11 items are a useful and valid instrument to assess health coaching in stroke patients.