Adaptation and Validation of a scale to Assess Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions of Healthcare Workers Towards Alcohol Withdrawal and Its Detection

Delay in recognition and management of alcohol withdrawal may result in complications like delirium tremens. Knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions have been found to influence healthcare worker’s clinical practice and quality of patient care. Hence, this study aimed to adapt and validate a scale to assess knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of healthcare workers towards alcohol withdrawal and its detection. Content validation was performed by 5 experts, while cognitive debriefing by 20 respondents. Construct validity was determined based on responses from 125 healthcare workers in University Malaya Medical Centre. Content validation resulted in removal of 3 items from the original scale. Cognitive debriefing demonstrated a good face validity. Confirmatory factor analysis for attitudes and perceptions constructs demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity, while for knowledge construct, 2 items were removed. Cronbach’s alpha for overall scale was 0.75, and test-retest reliability was r = 0.85, p < 0.01.