The decision about retirement: A scale to describe representations and practices of medical doctors and nurses

New reliable and valid instrument to describe health professionals representations about retirement.A valid instrument that can be used to compare different health professionals.Job satisfaction is the major factor associated with positions about general policies about retirement.

To test the psychometric properties of a newly designed instrument to describe the REpresentations and Practices About REtirement (the PREPARE instrument).

Participants were nurses and doctors working in the two public hospitals of Porto, aged 55-65 years, in 2011. Among the 367 eligible participants, 231 (65.9%) participated in the study. The PREPARE instrument consists of four sections: 9, 5 and 12, respectively. A principal component analysis was performed to evaluate the scale's dimensionality, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis to test the fit using different indexes (TLI - Tucker-Lewis Index and CFI - Confirmatory fit index).

Principal confirmatory analysis and confirmatory factor analysis identified 3, 1 and 2 factors for section 1, 2 and 3. All confirmatory factor analysis models had a value of CFI and TLI higher than 0.9. Section 1 showed a first factor related with items about the importance of personal competences, a second factor related with items about the importance of relationships with patients, and third factor related with items about the importance of following ethical and directive rules; section 2 showed a general factor about the features you valued most in the other health professional group; and, finally, in section 3, the first factor was related with items about satisfaction with the work environment and the second factor with items about satisfaction with professional career.

The PREPARE instrument has the basic requirements of a valid and reliable measurement of a scale to describe medical doctors and nurses representations and practices about the decision regarding retirement.