The Dutch Individualised Care Scale for patients and nurses - a psychometric validation study.

Patients with delirium, dementia, other mental illness, intellectual disability, or inability to read/speak Dutch were excluded, so the scale's performance in those groups is unknown. 193 patient cases and 37 nurse cases with missing items were removed, so the analysed sample is not the full collected sample. Test-retest reliability was not assessed, so it is unknown whether responses stay stable over time. Ward type was not modelled separately because power was insufficient, so differences across surgical, maternity, geriatric, rehabilitation, and internal medicine wards are unknown. Some items rated only fair for content validity were retained, and post hoc item correlations were added, so the final model may not reproduce in other samples. No specific cognitive impairment scales were used; competence was judged by ward nurses.

The authors declared no conflict of interest. Funding came from the Federal Public Service for Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment and Ghent University, and the funders were not involved in the study.

Do not read this as evidence that individualised nursing care improves patient outcomes. The study only tested a questionnaire, and the original model did not meet every fit standard.