Development and Validation of the Soft Skills Questionnaire for Nurses.

Introduction: Skills challenge has been given great attention for its impact on employees' performance. Various approaches have been put forward to design professional development programs that help in preparing nurses to work in the field and ongoing training programs to keep them up to each new method and technique at the interpersonal improvement level. Objective: To develop and validate a questionnaire that tests the communication and management skills, emotional intelligence, and confidentiality of nurses in Lebanon. Methods: The questionnaire, consisting of 25 statements, was generated and developed by experts in the field of nursing, soft skills, and questionnaire development. The items of the questionnaire were assessed using face, content, and construct validity and data validation was examined through psychometric properties at the final stage of the validation. Internal consistency and reliability were assessed through Cronbach alpha ( α ). Further analyses were carried out to decide on the number of factors to be extracted using Oblimin Rotation method. All statistical tests were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 20.0). Results: Nineteen items of the 25-item scale had an I-CVI of 1.00 and the remaining six items had an I-CVI of 0.87. The S-CVI/UA was 0.76 and the S-CVI/Ave was 0.97, which meant that the items were good for the underlying construct. For the psychometric measures, the results were quite accepted and satisfactory. The Kaiser-Meyer-Oklin measure of sampling adequacy and the significance for the Bartlett's test for the whole questionnaire were quite acceptable with 0.680 and 0.000, respectively. Furthermore, the Cronbach alpha (α) value was 0.824 indicating a high internal consistency between the items of the questionnaire. While obtaining exploratory factor analysis for each section, results showed that Oblimin Rotation method should be applied to the last section in which three items were eliminated to maintain a simple factor structure. Conclusion: This study shows that the 25-item Soft Skills Questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating the level of communication of nurses, their emotional intelligence, confidentiality, and management.

Prevalence and Behavioral-Based Risk Factors (Eye Cosmetic and Tobacco Use) of Symptomatic Dry Eye Disease in Four Middle Eastern Countries: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine.

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of symptomatic dry eye disease (DED) in four Middle Eastern Countries and investigate the association between behavioral-based risk factors and severity of DED. Patients and Methods: Population-based cross-sectional study of 1463 participants from 4 Mediterranean countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine). The Arabic version of the Ocular Surface Disease Index (ARB-OSDI) questionnaire was used to estimate the prevalence and severity of symptomatic DED using an online format survey. The survey also included demographic questions and possible behavioral risk factors (tobacco and cosmetic use). One-Way ANOVA and multivariate regression analyses were used to investigate the association between OSDI mean scores and behavioral-based risk factors. Results: The prevalence of symptomatic DED (OSDI score ≥ 13) among the overall population (332 males and 1132 females) reached 70.2%. Tobacco and cosmetic users reported a higher significant prevalence and severity of symptomatic DED than non-users (p < 0.0001). Smoking habits (eg, smoking cigarettes or Ajami, smoking in closed areas, and daily smoking) were more likely to report symptomatic DED. Bad hygiene process during the use of any cosmetic product was behind the high prevalence and severity of symptomatic DED among the females of the study population. Conclusion: Symptomatic DED is substantial in Middle Eastern countries. It is statistically associated with cosmetic and tobacco use.

Prevalence and risk factors of symptomatic dry eye disease in Lebanon.

PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of symptomatic dry eye disease (DED) and investigate its associated risk factors in the Lebanese population. METHODS: Population-based cross-sectional study of 602 participants from Lebanon aged 18 years and older. Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire on dry eye symptoms was used to evaluate the prevalence of symptomatic DED. Chi-square test was used to investigate the association between DED status and risk factors such as age, gender and smoking tobacco. RESULTS: The percentage of DED among the study population (271 males and 331 females) was 36.4% with OSDI score ≥ 13 (mild to moderate and severe OSDI status). The most reported DED symptom in the population was sensitivity to light. Smokers reported higher DED symptoms than non-smokers. Older and smoker populations were more likely to report significantly higher OSDI scores (p < 0.05). Moreover, gender was not statistically associated with DED (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Symptomatic DED is substantial in Lebanon. It is statistically associated with the age of population and their tobacco exposure.