[Psychometric Characteristics of the Clinical Nursing Mentors' Behavior Scale]

The behavior of mentors impacts the quality and experience of nursing students who are studying in clinical placement. Accurately assessing the behavior of mentors is fundamental to training, regulating, guiding, and improving their behavior and quality of teaching.

To test the validity and reliability of the Clinical Nursing Mentors' Behavior Scale (CNMBS) among mentors.

This study included three stages. During the first stage, seven Chinese experts were invited to evaluate content validity. During the second stage, the test-retest reliability was examined with 63 mentors. During the third stage, a cross-sectional study was conducted. Seven hundred and sixty-six nursing mentors from five hospitals in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Sichuan completed the survey either online or in hard copy form. The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using item analysis, construct validity, internal consistency and discriminant validity, with the results used to determine the psychometric characteristics of the CNMBS.

The content validity index for the CNMBS was .91. The intra-class correlation coefficient was .89; the range of the item discrimination critical ratio was 9.42-22.43 (p < .001), and the item-total correlation was .35- .70 (p < .001). The three factors of "guiding personal growth", "promoting professional development", and "providing psychosocial support" and a total of 23 items were identified, with item factor loadings ranging from .51 to .79. The three factors explained 50.99% of total variance. The internal consistency of the CNMBS earned a Cronbach's α coefficient of .92, while those of the three subscales were .89, .86 and .75, respectively.

The Clinical Nursing Mentors' Behavior Scale demonstrated high validity and reliability, supporting the CNMBS as a valid tool for assessing the teaching behavior of mentors.