Development and study of an instrument to measure role strain.

The purpose of the Lengacher Role Strain Inventory (LRSI) is to assess the characteristic of role strain in female nursing students who have multiple roles (being in school, having a family, and being employed). The LRSI consists of a 100-item Likert-type scale instrument. It was administered to 327 students (a pilot and five groups) in three different colleges. Reliability and internal consistency were determined with alpha coefficients. Coefficients of .93, .94, and .95 were obtained for female nursing students and .95 and .87 were obtained for the nonnursing community college student groups. Evidence of construct validity of the LRSI may be seen in comparing the mean scores of female nursing students and male and female nonnursing students using a contrasted-groups approach. Tests of significance between the nursing student groups and the nonnursing students resulted in significant differences of p < .05, p < .01, p < .0001, and p < .0000.