Scale validation of grief support in health care for spanish-speaking population

Abstract

The death of a child, who is attended by professionals, can be conceived by them as a loss, sometimes resulting in a traumatic expe­rience. Social support becomes an important mediator of the grieving process, helping to relieve the stress and to cope better. Objec­tive: Translation and validation into Spanish of «Grief Support in Health Care Scale (GS­HCS)». Method: Through the translation and validation of cross-cultural equivalence of GS­HCS in its Spanish version: «Apoyo en Duelo en Atención de Salud (EADAS)», we procee­ded to auto-apply this instrument to 215 pro­fessionals working in oncology units and cri­tical pediatric care. With this data there was an internal analysis of the tendencies using Cronbach’s Alpha, Bootstrap Confidence In­tervals and an exploratory analysis was perfor­med to test the psychometric properties of the scale divided into three dimensions; recogni­tion of the relationship, recognition of the loss and incorporation of belief rituals, performing a comparison of means using the t test for independent samples. Results: The «Grief Sup­port in Health Care Scale» (GSHCS) obtained a validation and reliability with a coefficient Cronbach’s Alpha score of 0.81. By analyzing the variables, it was found that oncology unit professionals and both units women perceive themselves to be more socially supported in their mourning. Conclusion: The «Grief Sup­port in Health Care Scale» (GSHCS) is a valid and reliable instrument, which allows to iden­tify the perception of support in the mourning process.