Development of an assessment tool for breast self-examination: rubric

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women, and early diagnosis significantly improves prognosis. Therefore, the rationale for this study was to develop an objective measurement tool that would assess breast self-examination skills in a standardized, valid, and reliable manner.The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable rubric to assess the breast self-examination skills of women objectively. In this methodological research study, the researchers established a system that scores breast self-examination as “inadequate”, “partially adequate” and “adequate” by setting criteria for each skill step. The study was conducted with 171 nursing students. Data analysis was performed with IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0 software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). While validity was tested with the Davis technique, reliability was tested with Cronbach’s alpha and intra-class correlation coefficient. Furthermore, the time-dependent reliability of the tool was assessed through test-retest applications. The opinions of 10 experts were obtained for the determined criteria. The content validity index of the breast self-examination rubric was calculated to be 0.97, and it was determined that its content validity was high. As a result of the internal consistency analysis, Cronbach’s α value was calculated to be 0.967. The intra-class correlation coefficient in inter-observer agreement was determined to be 0.936. No significant differences were found after test-retest applications (p > 0.05). The test-retest analyses for time-dependent invariance showed a significant improvement in students’ breast self-examination skills. The breast self-examination rubric is a valid and reliable assessment tool with 18 items that can be used to objectively assess the breast self-examination skills of women.