Translation, Adaptation and Psychometric Validation of the Indonesian Version of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale for Parents of Low Birth Weight Infants

Purpose: Parental readiness is a requirement for discharge of the high-risk infant from the hospital. Currently, in
Indonesia, there are no standard tools to measure parental readiness according to parents' perceptions. This
study aimed to undertake cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric validation of the original version (English)
of the Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale (RHDS)-Parent into Bahasa Indonesia.
Design and methods: The cross-cultural adaptation was comprised of seven steps: forward translation, forward
translation review, blind-back translation, back translation review, pilot testing of the pre-final version with
mothers of lowbirthweight (LBW) infants, expert panel for conceptual and content equivalence, and initial psychometric
testing. In the fifth and sixth steps, content validity index was estimated. In the seventh step, exploratory
factor analysis (EFA) and internal consistency reliability were conducted. In total, 146 mothers of LBW
infants were included in the psychometric testing using convenience sampling.
Results: The 22 item Bahasa-RHDS-Parent emerged in a four-factor structure evident from EFA. This version has
good reliability with Cronbach alpha values for knowledge and coping ability (0.92), physical-emotional readiness
(0.89), pain and power (0.83), expected support (0.80) and 0.90 across the total Bahasa-RHDS-Parent.
Conclusion: The Bahasa-RHDS-Parent presents good cross-cultural adaptation and initial psychometric properties
for assessing parental readiness in parents with LBWinfants before hospital discharge.
Practice implications: This questionnaire can be used by nurses to measure readiness for discharge of parents of
low birthweight babies. Further testing is needed with a larger sample and parents of children of other ages
and conditions for instrument improvement.