This study was done to develop and test validity and reliability of on instrument for predicting nursing intention for SARS patient care.

The psychometric properties of a SARS patient care attrition prediction tool, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, were examined in this study. The Three-phase design involved a) salient beliefs generated from clinical nurses (n=43) b) content validation by expert panel evaluations(n=5) c) face validation by plot testing (n=10) d) and instrument validation in a cross sectional survey (n=299). Psychometric analysis of survey data provided empirical evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the instrument.

Principal component analysis verified the hypothesized 6-factor solution, explaining 68.2% of variance, and Alpha coefficients of .7538 to .9389 indicated a high internal consistency of the instrument.

The instrument can be used by nurse administrators and researcher to assess clinical nurses' salient beliefs about caring for SARS patients, guide tailored intervention strategies to effective caring, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.