Nurses' preparedness has been very important for them to treat patients effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic and serve the community. Nurses provide a vital role in mitigating the effects of health crises. In order to help nurses better understand their skills, abilities, and knowledge, as well as the actions that they should take to manage care, the research aims of this study are to (1) investigate the level of preparedness, readiness, and anxiety among nurses during the COVID-19 outbreak in Sabah, Malaysia; (2) examine the effects of various differences in preparedness and readiness among nurses; and (3) examine the effect of COVID-19 preparedness on anxiety among nurses. The results revealed that the nurses were moderately competent in managing the COVID-19 care situation. Each of the 3 differentiating characteristics (age, work experience, and previous disaster experience) did not predict how nurses would manage COVID-19 preparedness significantly. Besides, we also found only 2 dimensions of preparedness (familiarity with epidemiology and surveillance and familiarity with psychological issues) significantly predicted nurses' anxiety levels. Familiarity with epidemiology and surveillance predicted nurses' anxiety positively; in contrast, familiarity with psychological issues negatively influenced nurses' anxiety.
Background: Nurses' knowledge, skills and competencies are paramount for their preparedness to respond to emergency situations. This paper aims to test the psychometric properties and to determine the factor structure of the Emergency Preparedness Information Questionnaire (EPIQ) among nurses in Malaysia. Methods: There were 418 nurses in Sabah, Malaysia participated in this study. Besides, EPIQ, The Nurse Assessment of Readiness scale and the self-regulation scale were used to the validity of EPIQ. Results: The study revealed that the nine dimensions of EPIQ demonstrated very good reliability and construct validity. All the items showed good intercorrelation. The result of Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed a 3-factor solution model of EPIQ. The first factor was recategorized into four sub-factor due to the large number of the items loaded in this factor. Conclusions: The findings revealed that the EPIQ has strong psychometric properties. This scale can be used to measure nurses' preparedness in managing the emergency event in Malaysia.
The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) is a widely used measure of a core facet of the positive body image construct. However, extant research concerning measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across a large number of nations remains limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset - with data collected between 2020 and 2022 - to assess measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that full scalar invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional BAS-2 model has widespread applicability. There were large differences across nations and languages in latent body appreciation, while differences across gender identities and age groups were negligible-to-small. Additionally, greater body appreciation was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction, being single (versus being married or in a committed relationship), and greater rurality (versus urbanicity). Across a subset of nations where nation-level data were available, greater body appreciation was also significantly associated with greater cultural distance from the United States and greater relative income inequality. These findings suggest that the BAS-2 likely captures a near-universal conceptualisation of the body appreciation construct, which should facilitate further cross-cultural research.