Revision and validation of a short scale to assess home environment for elementary school children in transnational families in Taiwan.

PURPOSE: To develop and test a brief scale of the home environment of elementary school children in transnational families or vulnerable families. DESIGN AND METHODS: The scale development process took place in three phases. In the first phase, a 61-item scale was generated by an expert panel based upon related literature and Chinese Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (C-HOME). In the second phase 15 individual transnational families with elementary school children were interviewed, and items were reduced from 61 to 55 due to understandability or other practical considerations. Phase three's item analysis with 200 such families, reduced items to 41. Factor analysis followed, further reducing items to 27. Finally, the resulting 27-item scale underwent a test-retest with 57 subsample participants. RESULTS: An iterative process of item and factor analyses identified a seven-dimensional, 27-item Home Environment Assessment Scale (HEAS), which accounted for 52.28% of the total variance. K-R 20 was 0.76. The test-retest reliability for the full sample total score was 0.97. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide evidence supporting the scale consistency, content validity, and construct validity, and offer a useful instrument for health care professionals, especially pediatric nurses, to identify home environment interventions for young children in vulnerable families. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The findings of HEAS-27 can serve to guide pediatric health care professionals in promptly screening, evaluating, and teaching families so that children in a vulnerable population have adequate quality and quantity of support in the home environment.

Nurses' Views on the Potential Use of Robots in the Pediatric Unit.

PURPOSE: To describe nurses' views on the potential use of robots in the pediatric unit. DESIGN AND METHODS: A qualitative descriptive design was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 nursing staff who worked in the pediatric unit. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Three themes emerged related to the nurses' views on the potential use of robots in the pediatric unit (1) care impact - advantages, which included: (a) reducing healthcare providers' workload and (b) adequately meeting the needs of pediatric patients and their families; (2) care impact - shortcomings, which included: (a) deficiency of individualized care and (b) reduced employment opportunities for skilled nursing staff; and (3) attitude impact, including (a) lifelong learning and (b) integrating culture and technology to meet pediatric care needs. CONCLUSIONS: Robots' application may ameliorate the overall quality of pediatric care, allowing for better apportioning of nurses' time and energies to focus on direct patient care and reducing nurses' workloads. However, some possible disadvantages need attention, including robots' inability to provide genuine human touch, demonstrate human emotions associated with pediatric care, and exhibit cultural sensitivity. It is desirable to embed nursing practice needs in the advanced functions of robots and thereby ensure safe, reliable robotics suitable for pediatric care usage. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The findings can be used as a reference for nurses encountering challenges in working with robots, and for lifelong learning needs for pediatric nurses.