Development and Preliminary Psychometric Evaluation of a Questionnaire Assessing Nursing Students’ Perceived Capability to Recognise Dementia in Women

Aim To develop and undertake a preliminary psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire assessing nursing students’ capability to recognise and respond to possible early dementia in women, and to examine factors associated with questionnaire scores. Design A cross-sectional questionnaire-development and preliminary psychometric evaluation study. Methods An expert-reviewed and pilot-tested 25-item questionnaire was administered to Australian entry-to-practice nursing students. The analytic sample comprised 133 non-preview responses with more than 50% survey progress. Item performance, principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation and parallel analysis, internal consistency, preliminary construct validity, known-groups differences and multivariable associations were examined. Results Item-level missingness ranged from 0.0% to 3.0%, and corrected item–total correlations ranged from .520 to .719. All items demonstrated ceiling effects. Exploratory factor analysis of 114 complete cases, supported by parallel analysis, identified two correlated factors: contextual, safety and professional response (15 items) and symptom recognition and clinical interpretation (10 items). Sampling adequacy was good (Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin = .869), Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < .001), and the two-factor solution explained 50.96% of the variance. Internal consistency was high for Factor 1 (α = .932; ω = .935), Factor 2 (α = .907; ω = .908) and the total 25-item set (α = .945). After adjustment for older-adult placement and study year, dementia-specific education was associated with higher Factor 1 (B = 0.297, p = .012) and Factor 2 scores (B = 0.497, p < .001). Conclusion The questionnaire demonstrated promising preliminary structure and internal consistency. Substantial ceiling effects, borderline cross-loadings and the modest complete-case sample require confirmation and refinement in a larger independent sample.