Objective:

To describe the validation of an instrument to measure the clinical scientific dimension of nursing care in the intensive care unit (icu).

Materials and methods:

Psychometric study that determined the apparent and content validity of the instrument through a panel of experts, construct validity by means of exploratory factor analysis, and internal consistency through Cronbach's alpha. A sample of 186 nursing professionals working in Colombian ICUS participated in this study.

Results:

The apparent and content validity of the studied instrument showed a concordance index between 0.778 (lowest value) and 1 (maximum value). The internal consistency by Cronbach's alpha was 0.887 for the total instrument. Regarding construct validity, exploratory factor analysis evaluated the 3 factors contained in the original version of the instrument, identifying a higher correlation of the items with the nursing care process and, in a lower proportion, with the administrative and the investigative processes in the ICU.

Conclusions:

From the analysis of psychometric properties, it is supported that the instrument to measure the scientific-clinical dimension of nursing care in the ICU is a reliable and valid measure from the perspective of apparent and content validity. This instrument contributes to the evaluation of the scientific component -which allows nursing professionals to apply the scientific elements that support ICU daily work- based on the theoretical elements of nursing care and administrative and investigative processes for providing care to a person in a critical condition.

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