Psychometric validation of the general comfort questionnaire in chronic patients under kidney hemodialysis

Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the General Comfort Questionnaire, Brazilian version. Methods: A methodological study. Participants were 260 chronic patients under kidney hemodialysis submitted to application of the General Comfort Questionnaire, and submitted to exploratory factor analysis and data reliability. Results: the sample was considered adequate by the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test (0.815; p<0.001). In the exploratory analysis of factors by estimating the main components, 10 factors were obtained, which explained 60.14% of the measure variability. The scree plot test use resulted in four factors (psychospiritual, sociocultural, environmental, and physical) that explained 38.01% of the total variance. The overall Cronbach's Alpha value of the 48 items was 0.83. Excluding items with low commonality, Cronbach's Alpha of 0.80 was identified. Thus, it was observed that 33 items remained among the validated versions between the group of experts and the exploratory factor analysis, respecting the psychometric principles, with loss of 15 items. Conclusion: GCQ is valid and reliable for measuring comfort in chronic patients under kidney hemodialysis.