Psychometric testing of the Spanish version of the practice environment scale of the nursing work index in a primary healthcare context.

AIM

This paper is a report of psychometric testing of the Spanish version of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index for use in a primary health care.

BACKGROUND

The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index has been widely used in different studies and contexts. However, there is no validated version for primary care nursing staff in Spain.

METHODS

A descriptive, multicentre, cross-sectional study for transcultural adaptation and psychometric validation purposes. Data were collected from October 2009 to January 2010. To test the reliability of the factors in the measurement model, Cronbach's alpha was used. To study the measurement model, different structural models were tested, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. 377 completed questionnaires were obtained from a total of 553 nurses working for the Public Health Service in the Balearic Islands (Spain). This represents a response rate of 68·2%.

RESULTS

For overall reliability, a Cronbach alpha of 0·91 was obtained. The confirmatory analysis upholds the original five-factor structure.

CONCLUSION

The excellent goodness of fit of the confirmatory analysis corroborates the validity of this adapted version in primary healthcare contexts.