In order to guarantee that the collected data can be effectively analyzed with the help of quantitative statistical and qualitative tests to provide answers to research questions in nursing, it is necessary to apply appropriate instruments for data collection. The veracity, validity, and reliability of the survey used in the study titled “Causes of Non-adherence to the Antiretroviral Treatment in a Group of HIV Positive Clients” need be evaluated to conclude about the appropriateness of the proposed data collection instrument. Although the discussed survey is effective to measure nominal variables and it is suitable for this study, it is possible to state that the validity, reliability, and veracity of the questionnaire are comparably low.
The survey for the analyzed descriptive study is based on the questionnaire that includes questions regarding medical practitioners’ views on causes associated with non-adherence to the antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive patients. The face validity and content validity of the proposed questionnaire are high as the survey seems to measure what it is aimed to determine (Bolarinwa, 2015; Neep, Steffens, Riley, Eastgate, & McPhail, 2017). However, concurrent validity is rather low because the questionnaire can provide results that differ from other surveys for measuring treatment non-adherence in HIV-positive patients. Furthermore, predictive validity is also comparably low, but the measure of non-adherence can potentially correlate with other measures in the future (Pereira & Canavarro, 2015; Valim, Marziale, Hayashida, Rocha, & Santos, 2015). Threats to external validity of the questionnaire are high because a range of factors can influence practitioners’ views on causes of treatment non-adherence.
The reliability of the discussed survey is rather low as it is difficult to apply the scale proposed by the author of the study to future research. The use of the scale based on percentages does not allow other researchers to translate the results according to the Likert scale that they can choose because it can have four, five, or even more points to represent respondents’ attitudes (Alamolhoda, Jafari, Ayatollahi, & Kazerooni, 2017; Wang et al., 2017). Therefore, interrater reliability is also low (Arribas-Marín, Hernández-Franco, & Plumed-Moreno, 2017). The veracity of the survey is moderate to low as respondents are expected to choose answers only among the provided variants, and the risk that the questionnaire does not include all the relevant information is high.
In descriptive studies, researchers can use only one variable to describe without focusing on relationships between variables. In this study, research questions determine one variable in each case that is categorized as a nominal level variable with reference to the levels of measurement. The proposed survey is effective to operationally define and measure the discussed variables because nominal variables have no order or hierarchy in contrast to ordinal, ratio, and interval levels of measurement (Meemon, Paek, Yenchai, & Wan, 2016; Oliveira, Carvalho, & Esteves, 2016). Furthermore, the examples of data analysis support this conclusion as the researcher presented percentages for reasons why HIV-positive patients can fail to adhere to their treatment and for the ways of enhancing treatment adherence as it is typical for this level of measurement.
The proposed survey is appropriate only for the conducted descriptive research because of its limited validity and reliability. Although the survey allows for collecting the information required for addressing the research questions set for this study, other researchers can experience difficulties with adapting the questionnaire to prove its reliability. Therefore, advantages and disadvantages of the discussed survey can be explained with reference to the type and nature of the conducted study.
References
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Arribas-Marín, J., Hernández-Franco, V., & Plumed-Moreno, C. (2017). Nursing students’ perception of academic support in the practicum: Development of a reliable and valid measurement instrument. Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(5), 387-395.
Bolarinwa, O. A. (2015). Principles and methods of validity and reliability testing of questionnaires used in social and health science researches. Nigerian Postgraduate Medical Journal, 22(4), 195-201.
Meemon, N., Paek, S. C., Yenchai, D., & Wan, T. T. (2016). Application of the WHOQOL-HIV-BREF questionnaire in HIV-infected Thai patients: Reliability and validity of the instrument. Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 27(5), 698-708.
Neep, M. J., Steffens, T., Riley, V., Eastgate, P., & McPhail, S. M. (2017). Development of a valid and reliable test to assess trauma radiograph interpretation performance. Radiography, 23(2), 153-158.
Oliveira, S. E., Carvalho, H., & Esteves, F. (2016). Toward an understanding of the quality of life construct: Validity and reliability of the WHOQOL-Bref in a psychiatric sample. Psychiatry Research, 244, 37-44.
Pereira, M., & Canavarro, M. C. (2015). Reliability and validity of the European Portuguese version of the quality of life index EUROHIS-QOL-8 in HIV-infected patients. Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública, 33(2), 183-187.
Valim, M. D., Marziale, M. H., Hayashida, M., Rocha, F. L., & Santos, J. L. (2015). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire for compliance with standard precaution. Revista de Saude Publica, 49, 87-98.
Wang, M., Shen, J., Liu, X., Deng, Y., Li, J., Finch, E., & Wolff, K. (2017). Reliability and validity of the treatment outcome profile among patients attending methadone maintenance treatment programs in Kunming, China. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 77, 89-94.