Development of an Emergency Nursing Care Competency Scale for School Nurses

Abstract

Background The school nurse is a vital component of the school emergency services. Assessing School nurses’ emergency nursing care competency is essential to be sure safety and quality of care. The purpose of the study was to develop a scale for measuring school nurses’ competency.Methods This was an instrument development and validation study. The study was conducted according to the revised DeVellis scale development process coupled with the application of the International Council of Nurses’ Nursing Care Continuum Competencies Framework. Eight experts who specialize in school health and emergency care evaluated the validity of the content, while 386 school nurses evaluated the scale. The validity evaluation comprised factor analysis, analysis of control group validity according to school nurse experience differences, and analysis of criterion validity. Scale reliability was analyzed using Cronbach’s α value.Results The final scale comprises a self-reported 5-point Likert scale with 30 items, based on three factors and three sub-factors. The convergent validity of the items by factor and control group validity were both confirmed. The criterion validity was also found to be positively correlated with the Triage Competency Scale.Conclusion The scale may be used to identify factors influencing school nurses’ competency in emergency nursing care and contribute to research in competency-based education programs.