Assessing Oral Mucosal Pressure Injuries in Intubated Intensive Care Patients: Adaptation and Reliability of the Reaper Oral Mucosa Pressure Injury Scale

ABSTRACT Aim This study aimed to adapt the Reaper Oral Mucosa Pressure Injury Scale into Turkish and evaluate its reliability and validity for use by intensive care unit nurses in assessing oral mucosal membrane pressure injuries among intubated patients. Methods A methodological study was conducted with 165 intensive care unit nurses in a tertiary hospital. The adaptation process followed international guidelines, including translation, back‐translation, expert review and pilot testing. Psychometric testing included content validity, exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Results Although 83% of nurses reported familiarity with mucosal membrane pressure injuries, only 38% had received formal training, underscoring a practice gap. Turkish Reaper Oral Mucosa Pressure Injury Scale demonstrated strong psychometric performance: exploratory factor analysis confirmed a unidimensional structure (Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin = 0.92; Bartlett's χ 2 (136) = 2185.6, p < 0.001) explaining 52.4% of variance. Internal consistency was excellent ( α = 0.874; full scale α = 0.94; item–total correlations 0.42–0.80). Conclusions Turkish Reaper Oral Mucosa Pressure Injury Scale is a valid, reliable scale for oral mucosal membrane pressure injuries assessment.