Development and Psychometric Testing of the Nurses' Confidence Scale: Unique Families

To develop and evaluate an instrument designed to measure the confidence of nurses in their ability to provide neutral, compassionate care to unique families in perinatal settings: the Nurses' Confidence Scale: Unique Families.

Prospective instrument development and psychometric study.

Health system in the U.S. Mountain West region.

Convenience sample of 62 perinatal/neonatal nurses.

We developed a two-part scale to measure the confidence of nurses in their ability to care for complex/nontraditional families, termed unique families. Part A was focused on nursing care behaviors for any unique family; Part B was focused on providing care to seven specific unique family populations. Five experts in perinatal nursing or adoption evaluated the scale's content validity. To test the psychometric properties of the scale, we used item analysis, reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis.

The content validity index was 0.82. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient estimate of internal consistency for Part A was .92. Principal component analysis resulted in two factors that explained 64% of the total variance: skills and resources (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = .89) and awareness and sensitivity (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = .87). Part B had a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .90. Parts A and B showed a strong positive relationship with one another (r = .77). The general self-efficacy measure was strongly and positively correlated with Part A (r = .81) and moderately and positively correlated with Part B (r = .48).

The Nurses' Confidence Scale: Unique Families is a new tool with which to measure the confidence of perinatal/neonatal nurses in providing sensitive, specific care to complex/nontraditional families. Results of our psychometric evaluation supported initial acceptable reliability and validity of the scale.