Validation of the Korean version of the Kidney Transplant Understanding Tool.

Purpose: Because there are no new and validated tools that assess knowledge of kidney transplant (KT), we aimed to construct the Korean version of the Kidney Transplant Understanding Tool (K-TUT) and to validate it.

Methods: The Korean version of the K-TUT was established based on a translation and cultural adaptation process. A total of 69 items were reviewed by eight experts in KT for content validity, and a quantitative analysis was used to assess convergent and criterion validity (correlation coefficients), internal consistency (Kuder-Richardson 20, KR-20), test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC), item difficulty, and item discrimination for 29 KT candidates and 91 KT recipients.

Results: The content validity of the Korean version of the K-TUT proved to be excellent as all items; the scale-level content validity index (S-CVI) in universal average was .86 and the S-CVI in average was .98. A positive association between the scores assessed by the Korean version of the K-TUT and knowledge level of KT (r = .74 for KT candidates and r = .57 for KT recipients, both p < .001) and treatment adherence (r = .31, p = .003) was shown. The overall ICC values are .91 for KT candidates and .88 for KT recipients. The KR-20 values were .89‒.94 for KT candidates and .76‒.78 for KT recipients. The mean difficulty and discrimination were .72 and .41 for KT candidates, and .76 and .33 for KT recipients.

Conclusion: The Korean version of the K-TUT is proved to be a valid and reliable tool to assess KT-related knowledge in both KT candidates and recipients.