Development & Validation of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) Competency Tool for Student Nurses

Abstract

Background: Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is well-recognized for the treatment of various mental
disorderswith many efficacy trials supporting its use; however, there is little discussion of its use in mental
health nursing practices. In fact, there is no validated tool to measure the competency of student nurses in
administering Interpersonal psychotherapy.
Objective: This study was aimed at developing a validated tool to measure the competency of student nurses
to administer Interpersonal Psychotherapy.
Methods:The competency tool comprised of 30 items which were developed under three phases of IPT i.e.
Initial, Middle and Termination Phase. A sample size of 100 nursing students from four different nursing
colleges of Punjab were enrolled for the study. General and specific competencies of the participants while
delivering interpersonal psychotherapy was assessed on a five-point rating scale after giving one-week
training on Interpersonal psychotherapy. KMO measure, Bartlett test, Multiple correlation analysis and
exploratory factor analysis were employed for data analysis using SPSS 20 version.
Results:The IPT competency tool for student nurses wasdeveloped after thorough literature review and IPT
trainings. The tool was validated by six experts with a content validity ratio 0.91. Based on the factor analysis
results, the attributesof tool did not meaningfully merge into factors in initial, middle and termination phase
of Interpersonal psychotherapy competency rating scale. The total variance among the factors came between
70 to 80%.It was concluded that the list of attributes under each phase are independent and valid to include
in the IPT competency tool for student nurses.
Conclusion: IPT competency tool for nurses is a valid tool to measure student nurses’ competency to
administer IPT.