Development and initial validation of an instrument to measure novice nurses’ perceived ability to provide care in acute situations – PCAS

Abstract

Background: Novice nurses need to be better prepared to provide care in acute situations. There is currently no validated scale specifically measuring nurses' perception of their ability to provide care in acute situations. The aim of this study was to develop and examine the psychometric properties of a scale that measures novice nurses selfreported perception of ability to provide care in acute situations. Method: Development and test of the psychometric properties of the Perception to Care in Acute Situations (PCAS) scale. Items were generated from interviews with novice nurses (n = 17) and validated using opinions of an expert panel and cognitive interviews with the target group. Two hundred nine novice nurses tested the final scale. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to test construct validity, item reduction and underlying dimensions between the measured variables and the latent construct. Result: The PCAS scale contains 17 items grouped into three factors. EFA demonstrated a clean three factor logic construct solution with no cross-loadings, high correlation for the total scale in both Cronbach's alfa 0.90 and ordinal alpha 0.92. Conclusions: The PCAS scale has proven to have acceptable validity. The factors," confidence in provision of care", "communication" and "patient perspective" are likely to be important aspects of providing care in acute situations. Additional testing of the PCAS is needed to conclude if it is sensitive enough to evaluate interventions aimed at improving novice nurses competence and suitable as a guide for reflection for novice nurses.

A study of factors that predict novice nurses’ perceived ability to provide care in acute situations

“…Data were collected using an online survey and in parallel with another instrument design study (Sterner et al., 2020). Questions were in Swedish and are described below.…”

“…Questions related to novice nurses perceived trust in their ability to provide care in acute situations and their perceived ability to make clinical judgement in acute situations served as response variables and included five questions, these have been translated into English and presented in Table 1. These questions were not part of the instrument which was developed during same data collection process and reported in a previous publication (Sterner et al., 2020). Responses were collected on a 4‐point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree or very poor to very good.…”

“…For example, in the question “I trust my ability to provide care in acute situations”, the response options of: strongly disagree, somewhat agree, agree and strongly agree were dichotomized into disagree and agree. Response variables very poor, poor, good and very good were dichotomized into poor and good (Sterner et al., 2020).…”

The Attitude of Addis Ababa University Undergraduate Pharmacy Student's toward Pharmaceutical Care and Perceived Barriers for the Provision of Pharmaceutical Care

“…A self-administered questionnaire that was developed from previous works of literature was used to assess their attitude toward pharmaceutical care and perceived toward its implementation using a 13-item-standard PC attitude survey (PCAS) questionnaire, which is initially validated in USA (14) and has already been used in different studies conducted in Nepal (5) , Nigeria (8) , Qatar (9) , Gondar University, Ethiopia (7) , Cuban (11) , and similar studies Pakistan (15) and 12-items PC barrier questionnaires was used. The questionnaire was reviewed by the clinical advisor for content, readability, and comprehensiveness.…”

Ability to Care in Acute Situations—The Influence of Simulation-Based Education on New Graduate Nurses

“…5 Specific areas that NGNs find challenging and important aspects of caring in acute situations are confidence in the provision of care, communication, and including the patient perspective. 6 To facilitate the challenging transition process from being a nursing student to being a registered but novice nurse, different interventions and transition programs have been developed. 7,8 As one of several learning activities, simulation-based education is often incorporated into these programs to support NGNs in developing their readiness for action.…”