Short form scale of parent self-efficacy for general and specialized care for children with special health care needs.

backgroundSelf-efficacy in managing healthcare tasks has been shown to predict health behaviors and outcomes. Previous research has established the content validity of a full-length 30-item survey scale to assess the level of parents' self-efficacy when managing their children's healthcare tasks. The goal of this work was to create an efficient and psychometrically strong short form version to aid research and clinical practice. METHODOLOGY: We conducted scale construction using national cross-sectional survey data of English- and Spanish-speaking parents of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) 0-17 years old (9/2023-12/2023). Self-efficacy was assessed with a 5-point confidence scale [1 (not confident) to 5 (very confident)]. The sample was randomly evenly split into derivation and validation samples. Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed for the general (14-item), equipment (8-item), and medication care (6-item) long form subscales, but not the therapy and mobility care long form subscales, which were only 1-item long. Spearman correlations were used to assess convergent and divergent validity. Means and standard deviations (SD) were calculated for item scoring.

results1,132 respondents participated (54% Non-Hispanic White; 68% mothers). Derivation and validation samples were n = 566 each. The EFAs revealed single-factor structures for general care items (Cronbach's alpha 0.95); medication care items (Cronbach's alpha 0.91); and equipment care items (Cronbach's alpha 0.85). CFA results confirmed EFA results, with 5 items for general care (Cronbach's alpha 0.87), 3 items for medication care (Cronbach's alpha 0.76), and 3 items for equipment care (Cronbach's alpha 0.77). The mean scores of the new short form subscales were 4.36 (SD = 0.73), 4.41 (SD = 0.77), and 4.19 (SD = 0.86) for general, medication, and equipment care, respectively. DISCUSSION: This 13-item short form scale (5 general care, 3 equipment care, 3 medication care, 1 therapy care, and 1 mobility care sub-scales items) is an efficient, self-administered means of assessing parents of CYSHCN's self-efficacy with managing their child's healthcare. Future work will test the scale's feasibility and utility at identifying parents who may benefit from additional support and training.