How much do I belong to my profession? A scale development study: Midwifery Belonging Scale

This study was planned with the purpose of developing a qualified professional belonging scale that may reveal the professional belonging levels of midwives. The study prepared a 30-item, 5-point Likert-type scale containing general question statements related to professional belonging that were prepared as a result of a literature review, focus group meetings and expert opinions. The scale was tested with 300 midwives who were employed in two provinces in Turkey. The obtained data were used to test the scale's validity and reliability. In the validity-reliability analysis of the scale, exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and item-total score correlation were used. As a result of the factor analysis and Varimax rotation, it was determined that the scale consisted of 22 items and had a four-factor structure that explained 63.846% of the total variance. The internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) of the scale was calculated as 0.905. It was determined that the scale which was named as the Midwifery Belonging Scale (MBS) is a valid and reliable instrument.