Refining a self-assessment of informatics competency scale using Mokken scaling analysis

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Nursing Education
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Healthcare environments increasingly adopt health information technology (HIT).
• HIT adoption necessitates user competency across professions.
• HIT facilitates interprofessional healthcare delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To refine the Self-Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies Scale (SANICS).
• To utilize item response theory (IRT) for scale refinement.
• To explore the relevance of informatics competencies in interprofessional education and practice.

Main Methods:

• A 93-item version of SANICS was analyzed using non-parametric item response theory (IRT).
• An iterative modeling procedure involved assessing scalability, monotonicity, and item ordering, with expert input.
• The scale was reduced to an 18-item hierarchical structure.

Main Results:

• The refined 18-item SANICS demonstrated excellent reliability.
• Items related to fundamental team functioning and decision-making skills were most difficult.
• "Demonstrating basic technology skills" was the least difficult competency.
• Most items are relevant informatics competencies for all health professionals.

Conclusions:

• The refined SANICS is a reliable measure of nursing informatics competencies.
• The scale's structure highlights varying difficulty levels of essential HIT skills.
• The IRT-based refinement approach is applicable to other health professions' informatics scales.