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Published on: April 23, 2014
Development and psychometric evaluation of the patient care associates' work environment scale
Jeanette Ives-Erickson1, Mary E Duffy, Dorothy A Jones
1Author Affiliations: Senior Vice President for Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer (Dr Ives-Erickson); Senior Nurse Scientist (Dr Duffy) and Director (Dr Jones), Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Patient Care Associates' Work Environment Scale (PCA-WES).
Background:
Few studies exist examining patient care associates (PCAs) working in acute care settings, and no instruments are available to examine the impact of the work environment on their practice.
Methods:
A psychometric evaluation using a nonprobability purposive sample of 390 PCAs was undertaken.
Results:
Cronbach's α internal consistency reliability of the total score was .95. Principal components analysis with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization identified 5 components that accounted for 57.2% of variance and confirmed the original theoretical structure. The resulting 35-item scale had subscale Cronbach's α reliability estimates that ranged from .84 to .93.
Conclusions:
The multidimensional PCA-WES is a psychometrically sound measure of 5 components of the PCA practice environment in the acute care setting and is sufficiently reliable and valid for use as independent subscales in healthcare research.
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