Italian validation of the healthcare needs scale for youth with congenital heart disease and its short-form development

Aims: This study aimed at providing an Italian short version of the ‘healthcare needs scale for youth with congenital heart disease’ (I-HNS-CHD-s), describing its construct validity and reliability. Methods: A multi-method and multi-phase design were adopted. Phase one referred to the cultural-linguistic validation of the original scale into Italian. Phase two tasted content and face validity of the Italian-translated scale. Phase three included the psychometric validation process of scale, encompassed two different steps: first cross-sectional data collection (sample A) purposed at determining the psychometric characteristics of the I-HNS-CHD-s, using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Then, a second round of cross-sectional data collection (sample B) was performed using the version of I-HNS-CHD-s derived from the previous step, and it purposed at confirming the scale factor structure and at assessing its reliability. Results: I-HNS-CHD-s showed evidence of face and content validity, adequate construct and internal consistency and stability. Specifically, I-HNS-CHD-s had 14 items kept by four domains, labelled as follows: Healthcare education, clinical support, emotional support, continuum of care. These domains were predicted by a second-order factor, which was labelled as Healthcare needs. Overall I-HNS-CHD-s encompassed only the items that showed high performance in the psychometric analysis. Accordingly, I-HNS-CHD-s is a shorter form of the original scale (14 items instead of 25). Conclusions: I-HNS-CHD-s is a psychometrically robust measure of the healthcare and psychosocial needs of Italian adolescents and young adults with congenital heart disease.