Development and Psychometric Testing of the Hemodialysis Symptom Distress Scale (HSD-22) to Identify the Symptom Cluster by Using Exploratory Factor Analysis
Abstract Aims: To develop a theoretical and psychometrical reliable measurement tool to identify the symptom clusters of patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD).Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study.Methods: To examine the psychometric properties of the HD symptom distress (HSD) scale, 216 subjects were recruited from a HD center of medical university hospital in Southern Taiwan from February, 2019 to April, 2019. Construct validity was evaluated by exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and the internal consistency and test–retest reliability were estimated by Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).Results: The HSD scale was composed of five factors with 22 items, including insufficient energy/vitality, cardiac–pulmonary distress, sleep disturbance, musculoskeletal distress, and gastrointestinal distress, with factor loading ranging from 0.62 to 0.87, explaining 65.5% of the total variance. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the HSD total scale was 0.93, and five subscales ranged from 0.73 to 0.87. The test-retest reliability was 0.92 (p < 0.001) by using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for HSD-22 scale.Conclusion: Results indicated that the HSD-22 scale had initial satisfactory validity and reliability. Therefore, this tool can be used to identify the symptom clusters of patients receiving HD.Impact: Patients receiving HD often experienced multiple symptoms concurrently and may impact their quality of life. A valid and reliable tool is needed to assess the symptom distress of patients receiving HD in terms of the perspective of symptom clusters. Although many studies had explored symptom clusters related to patients receiving HD, the clusters form had problems with overlapping, vagueness, lack of cluster-specific, and difficulty in discerning their common mechanism under the cluster. Psychometric testing from our study indicated that the HSD-22 scale can be employed to identify the symptom clusters of patients receiving HD in the clinical setting. Such identification enables healthcare professionals provide interventions to release patients’ symptom distress efficiently.