Development and psychometric testing of the work performance scale of nurse at primary care units

Abstract

© 2020, Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council. All rights reserved. Nurses are a cornerstone in providing care for people at primary care units, so the evaluation of the nurses’ work performance is important to improve service quality. Nurses’ performance has been assessed in many counties, including the United States of America, Canada, England, New Zealand, South Africa, and South Korea. Currently, there is a scarcity of tools for assessing all aspects of the work performance of nurses in Thai primary care units, so we undertook this study to develop and test the work performance scale of nurses. The study design was instrument development and psychometric testing. Qualitative methods using focus group discussions and expert reviews were applied for the items’ construction. Quantitatively we examined the psychometric properties of this scale with 662 nurses working at primary care units in Thailand. Only the quantitative data and results are presented here. Exploratory factor analysis revealed 71 items comprising ten factors: Basic treatment for common health problems and continuing care, School health care, Self-development, Research and innovation, Women and child care, Health resource management, Planning and budget management, Standard of care and assurance, Health data management, Disease prevention and environmental health care, and Disaster management. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the total 71 items and for each domain are in acceptable ranges. The Work Performance Scale for Nurses at Primary Care Units achieved good validity and reliability scores and can be used to evaluate the work performance of nurse to improve their practices. However, it requires further confirmatory testing with nurses in Thailand at a range of primary care units.