Objective: This study sought to translate, modify and validate an instrument developed by Beckman and colleagues to assess the knowledge of clinical nurses regarding pressure ulcers.Methods: A methodological study design was used. The instrument was translated into Chinese and back-translated into English. A six-expert panel was invited to evaluate the content validity, and a pilot test was subsequently performed on the test-retest stability of the translated instrument. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit 240 nurses from a university teaching hospital in the Mainland of China. In total, 186 valid questionnaires were collected with a 77.5% valid return rate. The validity of the multiple-choice test items(item difficulties and discriminating indices) and internal consistency reliability were evaluated.Results: The translated and modified instrument demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties, as follows:(1) the overall content validity index(CVI) was 0.91,(2) the overall test-retest reliability was0.826,(3) the item difficulty indices were between 0.46 and 0.93,(4) the overall values for discrimination were 0.28e0.55, and(5) the Cronbach’s a for the internal consistency were 0.792 for the overall instrument and 0.426e0.804 for the sub-themes.Conclusions: This study represents the first trial to translate and modify an existing instrument that measures the knowledge of pressure ulcers in a Chinese Mainland sample. The instrument demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties and could be applied in cross-cultural nursing practices, including nursing education, research and practice, to evaluate knowledge about pressure ulcer prevention.
