Development and Psychometric Properties of the Student Nurse Preparedness Assessment for Dementia Care (SNAP-D)

PURPOSE: National dementia strategies in the United States and United Kingdom emphasize developing a skilled nursing workforce capable of delivering person-centered dementia care. However, little is known about how prepared nursing students are to provide such care, and few validated tools exist to measure preparedness. METHOD: A literature review informed initial item generation, which was refined through expert review and cognitive interviews with 12 nursing students in the United States and United Kingdom. The final 59-item Student Nurse Preparedness Assessment for Dementia Care (SNAP-D) was tested with 328 nursing students to assess reliability and validity. RESULTS: The SNAP-D comprises eight domains and 59 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. It demonstrated adequate construct validity, good convergent validity, and strong internal and test-retest reliability. CONCLUSION: The SNAP-D provides educators with a validated tool to evaluate curricula, identify learning gaps, and assess nursing students' preparedness to deliver high-quality dementia care.