Scale for the Environment Evaluation of Professional Nursing Practice: Construct validation

Abstract

Aim Testing the validity and reliability of the Scale for the Environments Evaluation of Professional Nursing Practice (SEE‐Nursing Practice). Background The environment of professional nursing practice is key to achieve better results for clients, nurses and institutions. Therefore, instruments enabling the assessment of all its attributes are required. Method Cross‐sectional methodological study. The SEE‐Nursing Practice, based on a previous qualitative study and literature review, was applied as a questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess construct validity. Results A total of 752 nurses participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis of the SEE‐Nursing Practice led to a factor solution with 93 items and three subscales. The Structure, Process and Outcome subscales, respectively, have 43, 37 and 13 items, loaded in 6 factors, 6 factors and 2 factors and explaining 62.6%, 59.2% and 67.4% of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha of the overall scale and of the 3 subscales was greater than 0.90. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit. Conclusion SEE‐Nursing Practice is a good valid and reliable instrument. Implications for nursing management The SEE‐Nursing Practice enables assessing practice environments and is a tool for nursing managers in the definition of strategies ensuring favourable environments for nursing care quality.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Professional Nursing Practice in the Context of Hospitals

“…As a data collection instrument, we used a self-completion questionnaire composed of two parts: sociodemographic and professional characterization of the participants (gender, age, marital status, academic background, professional status, area of specialty, work context and length of professional experience) and Scale for the Environments Evaluation of Professional Nursing Practice (SEE-Nursing Practice) [ 18 ].…”

“…The SEE-Nursing Practice, which was built and validated in 2020, is composed of three subscales: the SEE-Nursing Practice—Structure (with 43 items divided into six dimensions), the SEE-Nursing Practice—Process (with 37 items divided into six dimensions) and the SEE-Nursing Practice—Outcome (with 13 items divided into two dimensions). Each item is answered on a Likert-type scale with five options, where one corresponds to “never”, two “rarely”, three “sometimes”, four “often” and five “always” [ 18 ].…”

“…To this end, it is essential to use assessment tools adjusted to the work contexts and the reality of professional practice. The instrument developed and validated in Portugal allows assessing three essential components: the Structure, which refers to the organizational factors that allow nurses to develop their work, as well as the conditions under which care is provided; the Process, which refers to the factors related to the performance of activities inherent to the design and provision of nursing care; and the Outcome, which assesses the desirable or undesirable changes regarding care, patients, and nurses [ 18 ].…”

“…Given the evidence that the professional practice environment is essential for the quality of care and that the components Structure, Process, and Outcome are essential to ensure it [ 19 , 20 ], the hypotheses of our study are: COVID-19 has an unequal impact on the components of nursing professional practice environments; the professional variables (e.g., work context, exercise of functions in areas of care for patients with COVID-19, length of professional experience and length of professional experience in the service) affect the qualification of the components/dimensions of nursing professional practice environments.…”

Environments of professional nursing practice in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Information concerning the environments of professional nursing practice was collected using the Scale for the Evaluation of the Environment of Professional Nursing Practice (SEE-Nursing Practice). 16 This scale has 93 items in three subscales: Structure (43 items with 6 dimensions); Process (37 items with 6 dimensions) and Outcome (13 items with 2 dimensions). The SEE-Nursing Practice—Structure subscale assesses the organizational factors that facilitate or hinder nurses’ work and the conditions for care providing.…”