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The development and psychometric evaluation of the Ethical Issues Scale
1Center for Nursing Research, School of Nursing, Boston College, 3rd Floor Cushing Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3812, USA. frys@bc.edu
Summary
The Ethical Issues Scale (EIS) was psychometrically evaluated in 2,090 nurses. It reliably measures nurse experiences with ethical issues in practice, specifically end-of-life treatment, patient care, and human rights.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Research
- Bioethics
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Ethical issues are prevalent in nursing practice.
- A validated tool is needed to quantify the frequency of these issues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe the conceptual development and psychometric evaluation of the Ethical Issues Scale (EIS).
- To assess the EIS's utility in determining how frequently nurses encounter ethical dilemmas in practice.
Main Methods:
- The 35-item EIS was validated using a sample of 2,090 registered nurses (RNs).
- Psychometric analysis included item analysis, confirmatory principal components analysis (PCA), and Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency.
- The sample was randomly split for component derivation and confirmation.
Main Results:
- Factorial analysis confirmed a three-component structure: end-of-life treatment issues, patient care issues, and human rights issues.
- The calibration sample explained 42.4% of the common variance, and the validation sample explained 41.5%.
Conclusions:
- The three subscales of the EIS demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency reliability.
- The EIS possesses adequate factorial validity for independent use in future research on nursing ethics.