Developing and Testing the Psychometric Properties of a Short-Form Questionnaire Regarding the Psychosocial Condition After a Cardiac Event (Nursing Science/ Sykepleivitenskap/Omvardnadsforskning/) (Report‪)‬

Introduction A cardiac event puts life on a knife's edge and the consequence is to cope with a new life including a different lifestyle carried out by patients themselves and with social support from healthcare professionals in order to achieve a sense of coherence in the renewable life (1-3). As the recovery initiates already in the hospital and runs lifelong healthcare professionals both inside (4) and outside (5) the hospital have to take care of and interplay with the patients (6,7) in order to support their own efforts and possibilities to improve and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Psychosocial difficulties in patients after a cardiac event are well-known among the healthcare professionals (8) yet no systematic or routine assessment with focus on their psychosocial condition with regard to coping, social support and sense of coherence is established (9). A good reason for this is that no convenient instrument exists even though several instruments exist with regard to both generic and condition-specific measurements of coping (e.g. 10-16), social support (e.g. 17-20) and sense of coherence (e.g. 21-23). In case of a shortform questionnaire, both easy to carry out and easy to assess the patient's principal psychosocial condition and ability at hospital discharge (4,24) or at follow-ups in the primary health care (25,26) more individualized care could be offered and the health and medical service could be more appropriately utilized with regard to both appropriate care and effective economical management (27). Accordingly the aim of this pilot study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of a short-form questionnaire concerning patients' psychosocial condition after a cardiac event with reference to coping, social support and sense of coherence to be used in every day clinical practice.